beautiful tE^fjougfitsf 

FROM 

Nathaniel Hawthorne 



James Pott & Company 



MCMVII 






USRARYofOONQRESS 

Two Gooies Recetvod 

JUL 18 »yu7 

JLASS-'O. XXc,Mo. 
COPY 0. 




Copyright, 1907, by 
JAMES POTT & CO, 



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JANUARY 



January 1st, 

"A happy New Year!" cried a 
watchman, eying her figure very ques- 
tionably, but without the least sus- 
picion that he was addressing the 
New Year in person. 

'' Thank you kindly," said the New 
Year; and she gave the watchman 
one of the roses of hope from her 
basket. " May this flow^er keep a 
sweet smell long after I have bidden 
you good-by! " 

Then she stepped on more briskly 
through the silent streets, and such 
as were awake at the moment heard 
her footfall, and said: "The New 
Year is come ! " 

— The Sister-Years. 



6 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

January 2d. 

As regards Its Interior life, a large, 
dim looking-glass used to hang in one 
of the rooms, and was fabled to con- 
tain within its depths all the shapes 
that had ever been reflected there — 
the old colonel himself, and his many 
descendants, some In the garb of 
antique babyhood, and others In the 
bloom of feminine beauty or manly 
prime, or saddened with the wrinkles 
of frosty age. Had we the secret of 
that mirror, we would gladly sit down 
before It, and transfer its revelations 
to our page. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

January ^d. 

There are so many unsubstantial 
sorrows, which the necessity of our 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 7 

mortal state begets on Idleness, that 
an observer, casting aside sentiment, 
Is sometimes led to question whether 
there be any real woe, except absolute 
physical suffering, and the loss of 
closest friends. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



January 4th, 

" But I," cried the fresh-hearted 
New Year — " I shall try to leave men 
wiser than I find them. I will offer 
them freely whatever good gifts 
Providence permits me to distribute, 
and win tell them to be thankful for 
what they have and humbly hopeful 
for more; and surely, If they are not 
absolute fools, they will condescend 
to be happy, and will allow me to be 



8 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

a happy year. For my happiness 
must depend on them." 

— The Sister-Years. 



January ^th. 

And with all its dangerous influ- 
ences, we have reason to thank God, 
that there is such a place of refuge 
from the gloom and chillness of 
actual life. Hither may come the 
prisoner, escaping from his dark and 
narrow cell, and cankerous chain, to 
breathe free air In this enchanted at- 
mosphere. The sick man leaves his 
weary pillow, and finds strength to 
wander hither, though his wasted 
limbs might not support him even to 
the threshold of his chamber. The 
exile passes through the Hall of Fan- 



WATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 9 

tasy, to revisit his native soil. The 
burthen of years rolls down from the 
old man's shoulders the moment that 
the door uncloses. Mourners leave 
their heavy sorrows at the entrance, 
and here rejoin the lost ones, whose 
faces would else be seen no more, 
until thought shall have become the 
only fact. It may be said, in truth, 
that there is but half a life — the 
meaner and earthlier half — for those 
who never find their way into the 
hall. Nor must I fail to mention, 
that, in the observatory of the edifice, 
is kept that wonderful perspective 
glass, through which the shepherds 
of the Delectable Mountains showed 
Christian the far-off gleam of the 
Celestial City. The eye of Faith 
still loves to gaze through it. 

— Young Goodman B?'ozun. 



10 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

January 6th. 

The children had seen Grandfather 
sitting in this chair ever since they 
could remember anything. Perhaps 
the younger of them supposed that he 
and the chair had come into the 
world together, and that both had 
always been as old as they were now. 
— Grandfathei''s Chair. 

January Jth. 

There is something extremely 
pleasant, and even touching — at 
least, of very sweet, soft, and win- 
ning effect — in this peculiarity of 
needle-work, distinguishing women 
from men. Our own sex is incapable 
of any such by-play aside from the 
main business of life; but women — be 
they of what earthly rank they may. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 11 

however gifted with intellect or 
genius, or endowed with awful beauty 
— have always some little handiwork 
ready to fill the tiny gap of every 
vacant moment. 

—The Marble Faun. 

January 8th. 

It Is greatly to be feared that the 
Three Gray Women were very much 
In the habit of disturbing their mutual 
harmony by bickerings of this sort, 
which was the more pity, as they 
could not conveniently do without one 
another, and were evidently Intended 
to be Inseparable companions. As a 
general rule, I would advise all peo- 
ple, whether sisters or brothers, old 
or young, who chance to have but one 
eye among them to cultivate forbear- 



12 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

ance, and not all Insist upon peeping 
through It at once. 

— J Wonder Book. 



January gth. 

The better life ! Possibly, It would 
hardly look so now; It Is enough If 
It looked so then. The greatest ob- 
stacle to being heroic Is the doubt 
whether one may not be going to 
prove one's self a fool; the truest 
heroism Is, to resist the doubt; and 
the profoundest wisdom, to know 
when it ought to be resisted, and 
when to be obeyed. 

Yet, after all, let us acknowledge 
It wiser, 'If not more sagacious, to 
follow out one's day-dream to Its 
natural consummation, although, If 
the vision have been worth the hav- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 13 

ing, it is certain never to be consum- 
mated otherwise than by a failure. 
— The Blithedale Romance. 

January loth. 

Grandfather loved a wood-fire far 
better than a grate of glowing anthra- 
cite, or than the dull heat of an invisi- 
ble furnace, which seems to think that 
it has done its duty in merely warm- 
ing the house. But the wood-fire is 
a kindly, cheerful, sociable spirit, sym- 
pathizing with mankind, and knowing 
that to create warmth is but one of 
the good oflices which are expected 
from it. Therefore it dances on the 
hearth, and laughs broadly through 
the room, and plays a thousand antics, 
and throws a joyous glow over all the 
faces that encircle it. 

— Famous Old People. 



14 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 



January nth. 

But still she was a wonderfully 
pleasant-looking figure, and had so 
much promise and such an indescriba- 
ble hopefulness in her aspect that 
hardly anybody could meet her with- 
out anticipating some very desirable 
thing — the consummation of some 
long-sought good — from her kind 
offices. A few dismal characters 
there may be here and there about 
the world who have so often been 
trifled with by young maidens as 
promising as she, that they have now 
ceased to pin any faith upon the skirts 
of the New Year. But, for my own 
part, I have great faith in her, and, 
should I live to see fifty more such, 
still from each of those successive sis- 
ters I shall reckon upon receiving 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 15 

something that will be worth living 
for. 

— The Sister-Years. 

January I2th. 

It is singular how very few there 
are, who do not occasionally gain ad- 
mittance on such a score, either in 
abstracted musings, or momentary 
thoughts, or bright anticipations, or 
vivid remembrances; for even the 
actual becomes ideal, whether in hope 
or memory, and beguiles the dreamer 
into the Hall of Fantasy. Some un- 
fortunates make their whole abode 
and business here, and contract habits 
which unfit them for all the real em- 
ployments of life. Others — but these 
are few — possess the faculty, in their 
occasional visits, of discovering a 



16 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

purer truth than the world can Im- 
part, among the lights and shadows 
of these pictured windows. 

— Young Goodman Brown, 

January i^th. 

It Is the voice of Winter; and when 
parents and children hear It, they 
shudder, and exclaim: "Winter Is 
come. Cold Winter has begun his 
reign already." Now, throughout 
New England each hearth becomes 
an altar sending up the smoke of a 
continued sacrifice to the Immitigable 
deity who tyrannizes over forest, 
country-side, and town. Yet not un- 
grateful be his New England children 
(for Winter Is our sire, though a 
stern and rough one) — not ungrate- 
ful even for the severities which have 
nourished our unyielding strength of 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 17 

character. And let us thank him, 
too, for the sleigh rides cheered by the 
music of merry bells; for the crack- 
ling and rustling hearth when the 
ruddy firelight gleams on hardy man- 
hood and the blooming cheek of 
woman; for all the home enjoyments 
and the kindred virtues which flourish 
in a frozen soil. 

— Snowflakes, 

January 14th. 

The aspect of the venerable man- 
sion has always affected me like a 
human countenance, bearing the traces 
not merely of outward storm and sun- 
shine, but expressive, also, of the long 
lapse of mortal life, and accompany- 
ing vicissitudes that have passed 
within. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



18 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 



January i^th. 

Side by side with the massiveness 

of the Roman Past, all matters that 

we handle or dream of now-a-days 

look evanescent and visionary alike. 

— The Marble Faun, 



January i6th. 

There is certainly no method by 
which the shadowy outlines of de- 
parted men and women can be made 
to assume the hues of life more ef- 
fectually than by connecting their 
images with the substantial and 
homely reality of a fireside chair. 
It causes us to feel at once that these 
characters of history had a private 
and familiar existence, and were not 
wholly contained within that cold ar- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 19 

ray of outward action which we are 
compelled to receive as the adequate 
representation of their lives. 

— Grandfather s Chair. 



January lyth. 

Time — where man lives not — what 
is it but eternity? And in the church, 
we might suppose, are garnered up, 
throughout the week, all thoughts 
and feelings that have reference to 
eternity, until the holy day comes 
round again, to let them forth. 
Might not, then, its more appropri- 
ate site be in the outskirts of the 
town, with space for old trees to 
wave around it and throw their sol- 
emn shadows over a quiet green? 

— Twice Told Tales. 



20 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

January i8th. 

Onward, onward, Into that dimness 
where the lights of Time, which have 
blazed along the procession, are flick- 
ering In their sockets ! And whither ! 
We know not, and Death, hitherto 
our leader, deserts us by the wayside, 
as the tramp of our Innumerable foot- 
steps pass beyond his sphere. He 
knows not, more than we, our des- 
tined goal. But God, who made us, 
knows, and will not leave us on our 
toilsome and doubtful march, either 
to wander In Infinite uncertainty, or 
perish by the way. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

January igth. 

The founders of a new colony, 
whatever Utopia of human virtue 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 21 

and happiness they might originally 
project, have invariably recognized 
it among their earliest practical neces- 
sities to allot a portion of the vir- 
gin soil as a cemetery, and another 
portion as the site of a prison. In 
accordance with this rule, it may 
safely be assumed that the forefathers 
of Boston had built the first prison- 
house somewhere in the vicinity of 
Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they 
marked out the first burial-ground, on 
Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about 
his grave, which subsequently became 
the nucleus of all the congregated 
sepulchers in the old churchyard of 
King's Chapel. —The Scarlet Letter. 

January 20th. 

When we find ourselves fading 
into shadows and unrealities, it seems 



22 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

hardly worth while to be sad, but 
rather to laugh as gayly as we may, 
and ask little reason wherefore. 

— The Marble Faun, 

January 2ist. 

At last the children grew weary of 
their sports; because a summer after- 
noon Is like a long lifetime to the 
young. So they came into the room 
together, and clustered round Grand- 
father's great chair. Little Alice, 
who was hardly five years old, took 
the privilege of the youngest and 
climbed his knee. It was a pleasant 
thing to behold that fair and golden- 
haired child in the lap of the old man, 
and to think that, different as they 
were, the hearts of both could be 
gladdened with the same joys. 

— Grandfather s Chair. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 23 

January 2 2d, 

What a pity that the kitchen, and 
the housework generally, cannot be 
left out of our system altogether I It 
Is odd enough that the kind of labor 
which falls to the lot of women Is just 
that which chiefly distinguishes arti- 
ficial life — the life of degenerated 
mortals — from the life of Paradise. 
Eve had no dinner pot, and no clothes 
to mend, and no washing day. 

— The Blithedale Romance, 



January 2^d. 

But, if the spectator broods long 
over the statue, he will be conscious 
of Its spell; all the pleasantness of 
sylvan life, all the genial and happy 
characteristics of creatures that dwell 



24 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

In the woods and fields, will seem to 
be mingled and kneaded into one sub- 
stance, along with the kindred quali- 
ties in the human soul. Trees, grass, 
flowers, woodland streamlets, cattle, 
deer, and unsophisticated man ! The 
essence of all these was compressed 
long ago, and still exists within that 
discolored marble surface of the Faun 
of Praxiteles. 

— The Marble Faun, 



January 24th. 

This rose bush, by a strange chance, 
has been kept alive in history; but 
whether it had merely survived out 
of the stern old wilderness, so long 
after the fall of the gigantic pines 
and oaks that originally overshad- 
owed it — or whether, as there is a 



NATHAXIEL HAWTHORNE 25 

fair authority for believing, it had 
sprung up under the footsteps of the 
sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she en- 
tered the prison-door — we shall not 
take upon us to determine. Finding 
it so directly on the threshold of our 
narrative, which is now about to issue 
from that inauspicious portal, we 
could hardly do otherwise than pluck 
one of its flowers, and present it to the 
reader. It may serve, let us hope, to 
symbolize some sweet moral blossom, 
that may be found along the track, or 
relieve the darkening close of a tale 
of human frailty and sorrow. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 



January 25th. 

Oh, Judgment Seat, not by the pure 
in heart wast thou established, nor in 



26 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

the simplicity of nature; but by hard 
and wrinkled men, and upon the ac- 
cumulated heap of earthly wrong! 
Thou art the very symbol of man's 
perverted state. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse, 



January 26th, 

In the depths of every heart there 
is a tomb and a dungeon, though the 
lights, the music, and revelry above 
may cause us to forget their exist- 
ence and the buried ones or prisoners 
whom they hide. But sometimes, 
and oftenest at midnight, those dark 
receptacles are flung wide open. In 
an hour like this, when the mind has 
a passive sensibility, but no active 
strength — when the Imagination Is a 
mirror Imparting vividness to all 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 27 

Ideas without the power of selecting 
or controlling them — then pray that 
your griefs may slumber and the 
brotherhood of remorse not break 
their chain. 

— The Haunted Mind. 



January 2'jth, 

Man's intellect, moderated by 
Woman's tenderness and moral sense ! 
Were such the legislation of the 
world, there would be no need of 
State-houses, Capitols, Halls of Par- 
liament, nor even of those little as- 
semblages of patriarchs beneath the 
shadowy trees, by whom freedom was 
first Interpreted to mankind on our 
native shores. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse, 



28 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

January 28th. 

Happy the man that has such a 
friend beside him when he comes to 
die ! and unless a friend Hke Hollings- 
worth be at hand — as most probably 
there will not — he had better make 
up his mind to die alone. How many 
men, I wonder, does one meet with, 
in a lifetime, whom he would choose 
for his death-bed companions! 

— The Blithedale Ro?nance. 

January 2gth. 

His heart yearned within him; for 
he was eager to tell his wife of the 
new home which he had chosen. But 
when he beheld her pale and hollow 
cheek, and found how her strength 
was wasted, he must have known that 
her appointed home was in a better 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 29 

land. Happy for him, then — happy 
both for him and her — if they re- 
membered that there was a path to 
Heaven, as well from this heathen 
wilderness as from the Christian land 
whence they had come. 

— Grandfather's Chair. 

January ^oth. 

I am apt to be fearful in old, 
gloomy houses, and in the dark. I 
love no dark or dusky corners, except 
it be in a grotto, or among the thick 
green leaves of an arbor, or in some 
nook of the woods, such as I know 
many In the neighborhood of my 
home. Even there, if a stray sun- 
beam steal in, the shadow is all the 
better for its cheerful glimmer. 

— The Marble Faun. 



30 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 



January Sist. 

This Is no strange thing In human 
experience. Men who attempt to do 
the world more good than the world 
Is able entlrly to comprehend are al- 
most Invariably held In bad odor. 
But yet, If the wise and good man 
can wait a while, either the present 
generation or posterity will do him 
justice. 

— Famous Old People. 



FEBRUARY 



February ist. 

It is perilous to make a chasm in 
human affections; not that they gape 
so long and wide — but so quickly 
close again ! 

— Twice Told Tales. 



February 2d. 

But, as thoughts are frozen and ut- 
terance benumbed, unless the speaker 
stand in some true relation with his 
audience, it may be pardonable to 
imagine that friend, a kind and ap- 
prehensive, though not the closest 
friend, is listening to our talk; and 
then a native reserve being thawed 
by this genial consciousness, we may 



34 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

prate of the circumstances that He 
around us, and even of ourself, but 
still keep the Inmost Me behind Its 
veil. To this extent, and within 
these limits, an author, methlnks, may 
be autobiographical, without violating 
either the reader's rights or his own. 
— The Custom House. 



February ^d. 

These wooded and flowery lawns 
are more beautiful than the finest 
of English park-scenery, more touch- 
ing, more Impressive, through the 
neglect that leaves Nature so much to 
her own ways and methods. Since 
man seldom Interferes with her, she 
sets to work In her quiet way and 
makes herself at home. There is 
enough of human care, It Is true, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 35 

bestowed long ago and still bestowed, 
to prevent wildness from growing 
into deformity; and the result is an 
ideal landscape, a woodland scene 
that seems to have been projected 
out of the poet's mind. 

— The Marble Faun. 

February ph. 

It often happens that the outcasts 
of one generation are those who are 
reverenced as the wisest and best of 
men by the next. The securest fame 
is that which comes after a man's 
death. 

— Grandfather s Chair. 

February ^th. 

We were of all creeds and opinions, 
and generally tolerant of all, on every 
imaginable subject. Our bond, It 



36 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

seems to me, was not affirmative, but 
negative. We had Individually found 
one thing or another to quarrel with 
In our past life, and were pretty well 
agreed as to the Inexpediency of lum- 
bering along with the old system any 
further. As to what should be sub- 
stituted, there was much less unanim- 
ity. We did not greatly care — at 
least, I never did — for the written 
constitution under which our mlllen- 
lum had commenced. My hope was, 
that, between theory and practice, a 
true and available mode of life might 
be struck out, and that, even should 
we ultimately fall, the months or 
years spent In the trial would not have 
been wasted, either as regarded pass- 
ing enjoyment, or the experience 
which makes men wise. 

— The Blithedale Romance. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 37 



February 6th. 

Only by watching the efforts of the 
most skillful copyists — men who 
spend a lifetime, as some of them do, 
In multiplying copies of a single pic- 
ture — and observing how Invariably 
they leave out just the Indefinable 
charm that Involves the last. Inesti- 
mable value, can we understand the 
difficulties of the task which they 
undertake. 

— The Marble Faun. 



February yth. 

On the whole. It was a society such 
as has seldom met together; nor, per- 
haps, could It reasonably be expected 
to hold together long. Persons of 
marked Individuality — crooked sticks, 



38 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

as some of us might be called — are 
not exactly the easiest to bind up into 
a fagot. But, so long as our union 
should subsist, a man of intellect and 
feeling, with a free nature in him, 
might have sought far and near with- 
out finding so many points of attrac- 
tion as would allure him hitherward. 
— The Blithedale Romance, 



February 8th, 

It is a little remarkable, that — 
though disinclined to talk overmuch 
of myself and my affairs at the fire- 
side, and to my personal friends — an 
autobiographical impulse should twice 
in my life have taken possession of 
me, in addressing the public. The 
first time was three or four years since, 
when I favored the reader — inex- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 39 

ciisably, and for no earthly reason, 
that either the Indulgent reader or 
the Intrusive author could Imagine — 
with a description of my way of life 
In the deep quietude of an Old Manse. 
And now — because, beyond my de- 
serts, I was happy enough to find a 
listener or two on the former occa- 
sion — I again seize the public by the 
button, and talk of my three years' 
experience in a Custom House. 

— The Custom House. 



February gth. 

The little brook ran along over Its 
pathway of gold, here pausing to form 
a pool In which minnows were dart- 
ing to and fro, and then it hurried 
onward at a swifter pace, as if in 
haste to reach the lake, and, forget- 



40 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

ting to look whither It went, it tum- 
bled over the root of a tree which 
stretched quite across its current. 
You would have laughed to hear how 
noisily It babbled about this accident. 
And even after It had run onward the 
brook still kept talking to itself, as if 
It were In a maze. It was wonder- 
smitten, I suppose, at finding Its dark 
dell so illuminated and at hearing the 
prattle and merriment of so many 
children. So It stole away as quickly 
as It could and hid Itself In the lake. 
— J Wonder Book, 

February loth. 

Often, In a young child's Ideas and 
fancies, there is something which It 
requires the thought of a lifetime to 
comprehend. 

— Grandfather's Chair. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 41 



February nth. 

In truth, It is desperately hard 
work when we attempt to throw the 
spell of hoary antiquity over localities 
with which the living world and the 
day that is passing over us have aught 
to do. Yet, as I glanced at the 
stately staircase down which the pro- 
cession of the old governors had 
descended, and as I emerged through 
the venerable portal whence their fig- 
ures had preceded me, it gladdened 
me to be conscious of a thrill of awe. 
— Howe's Masquerade, 



February I2th. 

It will be seen, likewise, that this 
Custom-House sketch has a certain 
propriety, of a kind always recognized 



42 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

In literature, as explaining how a large 
portion of the following pages came 
into my possession, and as offering 
proofs of the authenticity of a narra- 
tive therein contained. This, in fact 
— a desire to put myself in my true 
position as editor, or very little more, 
of the most prolix among the tales 
that make up my volume — this, and 
no other, is my true reason for as- 
suming a personal relation with the 
public. 

— The Cust07n House, 



February i^th. 

Would Time but await the close of 
our favorite follies, we should be 
young men, all of us, and till Dooms- 
day. 

—Twice Told Tales, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 43 

February 14th. 

But It is an awful thing, indeed, 
this endless endurance, this almost 
Indestructibility, of a marble bust! 
Whether In our own case, or that of 
other men, it bids us sadly measure 
the little, little time, during which our 
lineaments are likely to be of Interest 
to any human being. It Is especially 
singular that Americans should care 
about perpetuating themselves In this 
mode. The brief duration of our 
families, as a hereditary household, 
renders it next to a certainty that the 
great-grandchildren will not know 
their father's grandfather, and that 
half a century hence, at farthest, the 
hammer of the auctioneer will thump 
Its knock-down blow against his block- 
head, sold at so much for the pound 



44 BEAUTIFUL THOU GET 8 FROM 

of Stone! And It ought to make us 
shiver, the Idea of leaving our fea- 
tures to be a dusty-white ghost 
among strangers of another genera- 
tion, who will take our nose between 
their thumb and fingers (as we have 
seen men do by Caesar's), and Infalli- 
bly break it off, if they can do so with- 
out detection! 

— The Marble Faun. 

February i§th. 

Her simple, careless, childish flow 
of spirits often made me sad. She 
seemed to me like a butterfly at play 
In a flickering bit of sunshine, and 
mistaking It for a broad and eternal 
summer. We sometimes hold mirth 
to a stricter accountability than sor- 
row — It must show good cause, or 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 45 

the echo of Its laughter comes back 
drearily. 

— The BUthedale Romance. 



February i6th. 

And, to tell you the truth, I can- 
not help being glad that our foolish 
Pandora peeped Into the box. No 
doubt — no doubt — the Troubles are 
still flying about the world, and have 
increased In multitude rather than 
lessened, and are a very ugly set of 
imps, and carry most venomous stings 
In their tails. I have felt them al- 
ready, and expect to feel them more 
as I grow older. But then that 
lovely and lightsome little figure of 
Hope ! What In the world could we 
do without her? Hope spiritualizes 
the earth; Hope makes it always 



46 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

new; and even In the earth's best and 
brightest aspect Hope shows It to be 
only the shadow of an Infinite bhss 
hereafter. 

— A Wonder Book. 

February lyth. 

Amid the seeming confusion of our 
mysterious world, Individuals are so 
nicely adjusted to a system, and sys- 
tems to one another, and to a whole, 
that, by stepping aside for a moment, 
a man exposes himself to a fearful 
risk of losing his place forever. 

— Twice Told Tales. 

February i8th. 

And yet, though invariably happi- 
est elsewhere, there Is within me a 
feeling for old Salem, which. In lack 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 47 

of a better phrase, I must be content 
to call affection. The sentiment Is 
probably assignable to the deep and 
aged roots which my family has struck 
Into the soil. It Is now nearly two 
centuries and a quarter since the orig- 
inal Briton, the earliest emigrant of 
my name, made his appearance In the 
wild and forest-bordered settlement, 
which has since become a city. And 
here his descendants have been born 
and died, and have mingled their 
earthy substance with the soil; until 
no small portion of It must necessarily 
be akin to the mortal frame where- 
with, for a little while, I walk the 
streets. In part, therefore, the at- 
tachment which I speak of Is the mere 
sensuous sympathy of dust for dust. 
Few of my countrymen can know what 
It Is; nor, as frequent transplantation 



48 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

is perhaps better for the stock, need 
they consider it desirable to know. 
— The Custofn House. 

February igth. 

Men are wonderfully soon satisfied, 
in this day of shameful bodily enerva- 
tion, when, from one end of life to 
the other, such multitudes never taste 
the sweet weariness that follows ac- 
customed toil. I seldom saw the new 
enthusiasm that did not grow as flimsy 
and flaccid as the proselyte's moist- 
ened shirt-collar, with a quarter of an 
hour's active labor under a July sun. 
— The Blithedale Ro?nance. 

February 20th. 

It is a good state of mind for mor- 
tal man, when he is content to leave 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 49 

no more definite memorial than the 
grass, which will sprout kindly and 
speedily over his grave, if we do 
not make the spot barren with mar- 
ble. Methinks, too, It will be a 
fresher and better world, when It 
flings off this great burden of stony 
memories, which the ages have deemed 
It a piety to heap upon Its back. 

— The Marble Faun. 

February 2ist, 

Purity and simplicity hold con- 
verse, at every moment, with their 
Creator. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

February 2 2d. 

I know not whether these ancestors 
of mine bethought themselves to re- 



50 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

pent, and ask pardon of Heaven for 
their cruelties; or whether they are 
now groaning under the heavy conse- 
quences of them, in another state of 
being. At all events, I, the present 
writer, as their representative, hereby 
take shame upon myself for their 
sakes, and pray that any curse in- 
curred by them — as I have heard, and 
as the dreary and unprosperous con- 
dition of the race, for many a long 
year back, would argue to exist — may 
be now and henceforth removed. 

— The Custom House. 



February 2^d. 

Some illusions, and this among 
them, are the shadows of great truths. 
Doubts may flit around me, or seem 
to close their evil wings, and settle 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 51 

down; but, so long as I imagine that 
the earth is hallowed, and the light 
of Heaven retains its sanctity, on the 
Sabbath — while that blessed sunshine 
lives within me — never can my soul 
have lost the instinct of its faith. If 
it has gone astray, it will return 
again. 

— Twice Told Tales. 



February 24th, 

It is a mistaken idea, which men 
generally entertain, that nature has 
made women especially prone to 
throw their whole being into what is 
technically called love. We have, 
to say the least, no more necessity for 
it than yourselves ; only we have noth- 
ing else to do with our hearts. When 
women have other objects in life, they 



52 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

are not apt to fall In love. I can 
think of many women distinguished 
in art, literature, and science — and 
multitudes whose hearts and minds 
find good employment in less osten- 
tatious ways — who lead high, lonely 
lives, and are conscious of no sacri- 
fice so far as your sex is concerned. 
— The Marble Faun. 

February 2^th, 

And, finally, unless there be real 
affection in his heart, a man cannot — 
such is the bad state to which the 
world has brought itself — cannot 
more effectually show his contempt 
for a brother mortal, nor more gall- 
ingly assume a position of superiority, 
than by addressing him as *' friend." 
Especially does the misapplication of 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 53 

this phrase bring out that latent hos- 
tility which is sure to animate peculiar 
sects, and those who, with however 
generous a purpose, have sequestered 
themselves from the crowd ; a feeling, 
it is true, which may be hidden in 
some dog-kennel of the heart, grum- 
bling there in the darkness, but is 
never quite extinct, until the dissent- 
ing party have gained power and 
scope enough to treat the world gen- 
erously. 

— The Blithedale Romance. 

February 26th, 

We all of us, as we grow older, 
lose somewhat of our proximity to 
nature. It is the price we pay for 
experience. 

— The Marble Faun. 



54 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 



February 2ph. 

He had faith enough to believe, 
and wisdom enough to know, that the 
bloom of the flower would be even 
holler and happier than Its bud. Even 
within himself — though Grandfather 
was now at that period of life when 
the veil of mortality Is apt to hang 
heavily over the soul — still. In his 
Inmost being he was conscious of 
something that he would not have ex- 
changed for the best happiness of 
childhood. It was a bliss to which 
every sort of earthly experience — all 
that he had enjoyed, or suffered, or 
seen, or heard, or acted, with the 
broodlngs of his soul upon the whole 
— had contributed somewhat. In the 
same manner must a bliss, of which 
now they could have no conception^ 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 55 

grow up within these children, and 
form a part of their sustenance for 
immortality. 

— Grandfather s Chair. 

February 28th. 

It is very singular how the fact of 
a man's- death often seems to give 
people a truer idea of his character, 
whether for good or evil, than they 
have ever possessed while he was liv- 
ing and acting among them. Death 
is so genuine a fact that it excludes 
falsehood, or betrays its emptiness; it 
is a touchstone that proves the gold 
and dishonors the baser metal. Could 
the departed, whoever he may be, re- 
turn in a week after his decease, he 
would almost invariably find himself 
at a higher or lower point than he had 



56 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

formerly occupied on the scale of pub- 
lic appreciation. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

February 2gth. 

Yonder sun has left us, and the 
whole world is fading from our 
sight. Let us sleep, as thi's lovely 
little figure Is sleeping. Our Father 
only knows, whether what outward 
things we have possessed to-day are 
to be snatched from us forever. But 
should our earthly life be leaving us 
with the departing light, we need not 
doubt that another morn will find us 
somewhere beneath the smile of God. 
— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



MARCH 



March ist. 

We can be but partially acquainted 
even with the events which actually 
Influence our course through life, and 
our final destiny. There are Innu- 
merable other events, If such they may 
be called, which come close upon us, 
yet pass away without actual results, 
or even betraying their near ap- 
proach, by the reflection of any light 
or shadow across our minds. 

— Twice Told Tales. 



March 2d, 

There are some Individuals, of 
whom we cannot conceive It proper 
that they should apply their hands to 



60 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

any earthly Instrument, or work out 
any definite act; and others, perhaps 
not less high, to whom it Is an essen- 
tial attribute to labor. In body as well 
as spirit, for the welfare of their 
brethren. Thus, If we find a spiritual 
sage, whose unseen, Inestimable Influ- 
ence has exalted the moral standard 
of mankind, we will choose for his 
companion some poor laborer, who 
has wrought for love In the potato 
field of a neighbor poorer than him- 
self. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

March sd. 

The sick In mind, and, perhaps, in 
body, are rendered more darkly and 
hopelessly so by the manifold reflec- 
tion of their disease, mirrored back 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 61 

from all quarters, in the deportment 
of those about them; they are com- 
pelled to inhale the poison of their 
own breath, in infinite repetition. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 

March ph. 

Wealth is the golden essence of the 
outward . world, em.bodying almost 
everything that exists beyond the 
limits of the soul; and therefore it is 
the natural yearning for the life in 
the midst of which we find ourselves, 
and of which gold is the condition of 
enjoyment, that men abridge into this 
general wish. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

March ^th. 

From generation to generation, a 
'chair sits familiarly in the midst of 



62 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

human Interests, and is witness to the 
most secret and confidential inter- 
course that mortal man can hold with 
his fellow. The human heart may 
best be read In the fireside chair. 
And as to external events, Grief 
and Joy keep a continual vicissitude 
around it and within It. Now we 
see the glad face and glowing form of 
Joy, sitting merrily In the old chair, 
and throwing a warm firelight radi- 
ance over all the household. Now, 
while we thought not of it, the dark 
clad mourner. Grief, has stolen Into 
the place of Joy, but not to retain it 
long. The imagination can hardly 
grasp so wide a subject as Is em- 
braced In the experience of a family 
chair. 

— Grandfather s Chair. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 63 

March 6th, 

Christian faith Is a grand cathe- 
dral, with divinely pictured windows. 
Standing without, you see no glory, 
nor can possibly imagine any; stand- 
ing within, every ray of light reveals 
a harmony of unspeakable splendors. 

— The Marble Faun. 
Rest, rest, thou weary world! for 
to-morrow's round of toil and pleas- 
ure will be as wearisome as to-day's 
has been; yet both shall bear thee 
onward a day's march of eternity. 

— Twice Told Tales. 



March yth. 

It Is to the credit of human nature, 
that, except where Its selfishness Is 
brought Into play. It loves more read- 



64 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

ily than It hates. Hatred, by a grad- 
ual and quiet process, will even be 
transformed to love, unless the change 
be Impeded by a continually new irri- 
tation of the original feeling of hos- 
tility. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 



March 8th. 

It is a very miserable epoch when 
the evil necessities of life in our tortu- 
ous world first get the better of us so 
far as to compel us to attempt throw- 
ing a cloud over our transparency. 
Simplicity Increases In value the longer 
we can keep It, and the farther we 
carry It onward Into life; the loss of 
a child's simplicity. In the Inevitable 
lapse of years, causes but a natural 
sigh or two, because even his mother 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 65 

feared that he could not keep It al- 
ways. But after a young man has 
brought It through his childhood, and 
has still worn It In his bosom, not as 
an early dew drop, but as a diamond 
of pure, white luster — It Is a pity to 
lose it, then. 

— The Marble Faun. 

March gth. 

Could we know all the vicissitudes 
of our fortunes, life would be too full 
of hope and fear, exultation or disap- 
pointment, to afford us a single hour 
of true serenity. 

— Twice Told Tales. 

March loth. 

If you could choose an hour of 
wakefulness out of the whole night, 



66 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

it would be this: Since your sober 
bed-time, at eleven, you have had rest 
enough to take off the pressure of yes- 
terday's fatigue, while before you, till 
the sun comes from " Far Cathay " to 
brighten your window, there Is almost 
the space of a summer night — one 
hour to be spent In thought with the 
mind's eye half shut, and two In pleas- 
ant dreams, and two In that strangest 
of enjoyments, the forgetfulness alike 
of joy and woe. The moment of ris- 
ing belongs to another period of time, 
and appears so distant that the plunge 
out of a warm bed Into the frosty 
air cannot yet be anticipated with 
dismay. Yesterday has already van- 
ished among the shadows of the past; 
to-morrow has not yet emerged from 
the future. You have found an In- 
termediate space where the business 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 67 

of life does not intrude, where the 
passing moment lingers and becomes 
truly the present ; a spot where Father 
Time, when he thinks nobody is 
watching him, sits down by the way- 
side to take breath. Oh, that he 
would fall asleep and let mortals live 
on without growing older ! 

— The Haunted Mind. 

March nth. 

The past is but a coarse and sen- 
sual prophecy of the present and the 
future. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

March I2th. 

The root of human nature strikes 
down deep into this earthly soil; and 
it is but reluctantly that we submit to 



68 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

be transplanted, even for a higher cul- 
tivation in Heaven. I query whether 
the destruction of the earth would 
gratify any one individual; except, 
perhaps, some embarrassed man of 
business, whose notes fall due a day 
after the day of doom. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



March ijth. 

What IS Guilt? A stain upon the 
soul. And it is a point of vast in- 
terest, whether the soul may contract 
such stains, in all their depth and 
flagrancy, from deeds which may have 
been plotted and resolved upon, but 
which, physically, have never had ex- 
istence. Must the fleshly hand and 
visible frame of man set its seal to the 
evil designs of the soul, in order to 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 69 

give them their entire validity against 
the sinner? 

— Twice Told Tales. 

March 14th, 

Nobody, I think, ought to read 
poetry, or look at pictures or statues, 
who cannot find a great deal more in 
them than the poet or artist has actu- 
ally expressed. Their highest merit 
is suggestiveness. 

— The Marble Faun, 

March 15th, 

Why are poets so apt to choose 
their mates, not for any similiarity of 
poetic endowment, but for qualities 
which might make the happiness of 
the rudest handicraftsman as well as 
that of the ideal craftsman of the 



70 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

spirit? Because, probably, at his 
highest elevation, the poet needs no 
human intercourse; but he finds it 
dreary to descend, and be a stranger. 
— The House of the Seven Gables, 

March i6th. 

The strangest wishes — yet most in- 
cident to men who had gone deep 
into scientific pursuits, and attained a 
high intellectual stage, though not 
the loftiest — were, to contend with 
Nature, and wrest from her some 
secret, or some power, which she had 
seen fit to withhold from mortal 
grasp. She loves to delude her aspir- 
ing students, and mock them with 
mysteries that seem but just beyond 
their utmost reach. To concoct new 
minerals — to produce new forms of 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 71 

vegetable life — to create an insect, if 
nothing higher in the living scale — 
is a sort of wish that has often revelled 
in the breast of a man of science. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

March lyth. 

Hast thou exhausted possibility in 
the failure of this one trial ? Not so ! 
The future is yet full of trial and 
success. There is happiness to be en- 
joyed ! There is good to be done ! 
— The Scarlet Letter, 

March i8th. 

How wonderful that this our nar- 
row foothold of the Present should 
hold its own so constantly, and, while 
every moment changing, should still 
be like a rock betwixt the encounter- 



72 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

ing tides of the long Past, and the 
infinite To-come ! 

— The Marble Faun. 



March igth. 

Oh! who, in the enthusiasm of a 
day-dream, has not wished that he 
were a wanderer in a world of sum- 
mer wilderness, with one fair and 
gentle being hanging lightly on his 
arm? In youth, his free and exult- 
ing step would know no barrier but 
the rolling ocean or the snow-topt 
mountains; calmer manhood would 
choose a home, where Nature had 
strewn a double wealth, in the vale 
of some transparent stream ; and when 
hoary age, after long, long years of 
that pure life, stole on and found him 
there, it would find him the father of 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 73 

a race, the patriarch of a people, the 
founder of a mighty nation yet to be. 
— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

March 20th. 

All at once, as with a sudden smile 
of Heaven, forth burst the sunshine, 
pouring a very flood into the obscure 
forest, gladdening each green leaf, 
transmuting the yellow fallen ones to 
gold, and gleaming adown the gray 
trunks of the solemn trees. The 
objects that had made a shadow 
hitherto, embodied the brightness 
now. The course of the little brook 
might be traced by its merry gleam 
afar into the wood's heart of mystery, 
which had become a mystery of joy. 

Such was the sympathy of Nature 
— that wild, heathen Nature of the 



74 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

forest, never subjugated by human 
law, nor Illumined by higher truth — 
with the bliss of these two spirits! 
Love, whether newly born, or aroused 
from a death-like slumber, must al- 
ways create a sunshine, filling the 
heart so full of radiance, that It over- 
flows upon the outward world. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 

March 2ist. 

In truth, there is no such thing In 
man's nature as a settled and full re- 
solve, either for good or evil, except 
at the very moment of execution. 
Let us hope, therefore, that all the 
dreadful consequences of sin will not 
be incurred unless the act have set its 
seal upon the thought. 

— Twice Told Tales. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 75 



March 22d, 

Be cheerful ; whatever may happen, 
be nothing but cheerful. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



March 23d. 

Unless people are more than com- 
monly disagreeable, it is my foolish 
habit to contract a kindness for them. 
The better part of my companion's 
character, if it have a better part, is 
that which usually comes uppermost 
in my regard, and forms the type 
whereby I recognize the man. As 
most of these old Custom-House offi- 
cers had good traits, and as my 
position in reference to them, being 
paternal and protective, was favor- 



76 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

able to the growth of friendly senti- 
ments, I soon grew to like them all. 
— The Custom House, 



March 24th, 

It must be a spirit much unlike my 
own which can keep itself in health 
and vigor without sometimes stealing 
from the sultry sunshine of the world 
to plunge into the cool bath of soli- 
tude. At intervals, and not infre- 
quent ones, the forest and the ocean 
summon me — one with the roar of its 
waves, the other with the murmur of 
its boughs — forth from the haunts of 
men. But I must wander many a 
mile ere I could stand beneath the 
shadow of even one primeval tree, 
much less be lost among the multitude 
of hoary trunks and hidden from the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 77 

earth and sky by the mystery of dark- 
some foliage. Nothing Is within 
my dally reach more like a forest than 
the acre or two of woodland near 
some suburban farmhouse. When, 
therefore, the yearning for seclusion 
becomes a necessity within me, I am 
drawn to the seashore which extends 
its line of rude rocks and seldom-trod- 
den sands for leagues around our bay. 
— Footprints on the Seashore. 

March 25th, 

There Is sad confusion, Indeed, 
when the spirit thus flits away Into the 
past, or Into the more awful future, 
or, In any manner, steps across the 
spaceless boundary betwixt Its own 
region and the actual world; where 
the body remains to guide Itself, as 



78 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

best It may, with little more than the 
mechanism of animal life. It is like 
death, without death's quiet privilege 
— its freedom from mortal care. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 

March 26th, 

According to these highly respect- 
able witnesses, the minister, conscious 
that he was dying — conscious, also, 
that the reverence of the multitude 
placed him already among saints and 
angels — had desired, by yielding up 
his breath in the arms of that fallen 
woman, to express to the world how 
utterly nugatory Is the choicest of 
man's own righteousness. After ex- 
hausting life In his efforts for man- 
kind's spiritual good, he had made 
the manner of his death a parable, In 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 79 

order to impress on his admirers the 
mighty and mournful lesson, that, In 
the view of Infinite Purity, we are sin- 
ners all alike. It was to teach them, 
that the holiest among us has but at- 
tained so far above his fellows as to 
discern more clearly the Mercy which 
looks down, and repudiate more ut- 
terly the phantom of human merit, 
which would look asplrlngly upward. 
— The Scarlet Letter. 



March 2yth. 

Thus It Is, that Ideas which grow 
up within the Imagination, and ap- 
pear so lovely to it, and of a value 
beyond whatever men call valuable, 
are exposed to be shattered and anni- 
hilated by contact with the Practical. 
It Is requisite for the ideal artist to 



80 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

possess a force of character that seems 
hardly compatible with its delicacy; 
he must keep his faith in himself, 
while the Incredulous world assails 
him with Its utter disbelief; he must 
stand up against mankind and be his 
own sole disciple, both as respects his 
genius, and the objects to which It Is 
directed. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

March 28th. 

Yes, the wild dreamer was awake 
at last. To find the mysterious treas- 
ure he was to till the earth around his 
mother's dwelling and reap Its prod- 
ucts; Instead of warlike command or 
regal or religious sway, he was to 
rule over the village children, and 
now the visionary maid had faded 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 81 

from his fancy, and In her place he 
saw the playmate of his childhood. 

Would all who cherish such wild 
wishes but look around them, they 
would oftenest find their sphere of 
duty, of prosperity, and happiness 
within those precincts and In that sta- 
tion where Providence Itself has cast 
their lot. Happy they who read the 
riddle without a weary world-search 
or a lifetime spent in vain! 

— The Threefold Destiny. 

March 2gth, 

Dispositions more boldly specula- 
tive may derive a stern enjoyment 
from the discovery since there must 
be evil In the world, that a high man 
is as likely to grasp his share of It as 
a low one. A wider scope of view, 



82 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

and a deeper insight, may see rank, 
dignity, and station, all proved il- 
lusory, so far as regards their claim 
to human reverence, and yet not feel 
as if the universe were thereby tum- 
bled headlong into chaos. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



March joth. 

Who more need the tender succor 
of the innocent, than wretches stained 
with guilt? And must a selfish care 
for the spotlessness of our own gar- 
ments keep us from pressing the 
guilty ones close to our hearts, 
wherein, for the very reason that we 
are innocent, lies their securest refuge 
from further ill? 

— The Marble Faun. 



WATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 83 

March ^ist. 

It Is not until the crime is accom- 
plished that guilt clenches its gripe 
upon the guilty heart and claims It 
for Its own. Then, and not before, 
sin Is actually felt and acknowledged, 
and, If unaccompanied by repentance, 
grows a thousandfold more virulent 
by its self-consciousness. 

— Twice Told Tales. 



APRIL 



April 1st. 

This venerable figure explained 
that he was In search of To-morrow. 

" I have spent all my life In pursuit 
of It," added the sage old gentleman, 
" being assured that To-morrow has 
some vast benefit or other In store for 
me. But I am now getting on a little 
In years, and must make haste; for un- 
less I overtake To-morrow soon, I 
begin to be afraid It will finally escape 
me." 

" This fugitive To-morrow, my 
venerable friend," said the Man of 
Intelligence, " Is a stray child of Time, 
and Is flying from his father Into the 
region of the Infinite. Continue your 
pursuit, and you will doubtless come 



88 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

up with him; but as to the earthly 
gifts which you expect, he has scat- 
tered them all among a throng of 
Yesterdays." 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



April 2d. 

It is the special excellence of pic- 
tured glass, that the light, which falls 
merely on the outside of other pic- 
tures, is here interfused throughout 
the work; it illuminates the design, 
and Invests it with a living radiance; 
and in requital the unfading colors 
transmute the common daylight Into 
a miracle of richness and glory in its 
passage through the heavenly sub- 
stance of the blessed and angelic 
shapes which throng the high-arched 
window. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 89 

It is a sad necessity that any Chris- 
tian soul should pass from earth with- 
out once seeing an antique painted 
window, with the bright Italian sun- 
shine glowing through it ! There is 
no other such true symbol of the glor- 
ies of the better world, where a 
celestial radiance will be inherent in 
all things and persons, and render 
each continually transparent to the 
sight of all. 

— The Marble Faun. 

April sd. 

In youth, perhaps, it is good for 
the observer to run about the earth 
— to leave the track of his footsteps 
far and wide — to mingle himself with 
the action of numberless vicissitudes — 
and, finally in some calm solitude, to 



90 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

feed a musing spirit on all that he has 
seen and felt. 

— Twice Told Tales. 

April 4th. 

What other dungeon is so dark as 
one's own heart? What jailer so in- 
exorable as one's self? 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

April ^th. 

Giovanni's first movement on start- 
ing from sleep, was to throw open the 
window, and gaze down into the gar- 
den which his dreams had made so 
fertile of mysteries. He was sur- 
prised, and a little ashamed, to find 
how real and matter-of-fact an affair 
it proved to be, in the first rays of the 
sun, which gilded the dew drops that 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 91 

while giving a brighter beauty to each 
rare flower, brought everything within 
the limits of ordinary experience. 
The young man rejoiced, that, in the 
heart of the barren city, he had the 
privilege of overlooking this spot of 
lovely and luxuriant vegetation. It 
would serve, he said to himself, as a 
symbolic language, to keep him in 
communion with nature. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



April 6th. 

Is there no reality in the penitence 
thus sealed and witnessed by good 
works? And wherefore should It 
not bring you peace? 

— The Scarlet Letter, 

But we may safely leave brethren 
and sisterhood to settle their own 



92 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

congenialities. Our ordinary distinc- 
tions become so trifling, so impalpa- 
ble, so ridiculously visionary, in com- 
parison with a classification founded 
on truth, that all talk about the mat- 
ter IS Immediately a common-place. 
— Young Goodman Brown. 

April yth. 

The great folio. In which the Man 
of Intelligence recorded all these 
freaks of idle hearts, and aspirations 
of deep hearts, and desperate long- 
ings of miserable hearts, and evil 
prayers of perverted hearts, would be 
curious reading, were it possible to 
obtain It for publication. Human 
character In Its Individual develop- 
ments — human nature in the mass — 
may best be studied in Its wishes : and 
this was the record of them all. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 93 

There was an endless diversity of 
mode and circumstance, yet withal 
such a similarity in the real ground- 
work, that any one page of the vol- 
ume — whether written in the days be- 
fore the Flood, or the yesterday that 
is just gone by, or to be written on the 
morrow that Is close at hand, or a 
thousand ages hence — might serve as 
a specimen of the whole. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

April 8th, 

There Is an Influence In the light of 
morning that tends to rectify what- 
ever errors of fancy, or even of judg- 
ment, we may have incurred during 
the sun's decline, or among the shad- 
ows of the night, or in the less whole- 
some glow of moonshine. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



94 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

April gth. 

Persons who have wandered, or 
been expelled, out of the common 
track of things, even were It for a 
better system, desire nothing so much 
as to be led back. They shiver In 
their loneliness, be It on a mountain- 
top or In a dungeon. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

April 1 0th. 

A picture, however admirable the 
painter's art, and wonderful his 
power, requires of the spectator a 
surrender of himself. In due propor- 
tion with the miracle which has been 
wrought. Let the canvas glow as It 
may, you must look with the eye of 
faith, or Its highest excellence es- 



NATHAyiEL HAWTHORNE 95 

capes you. There Is always the neces- 
sity of helping out the painter's art 
with your own resources of sensibility 
and imagination. Not that these 
qualities shall really add anything to 
what the master has effected; but they 
must be put so entirely under his con- 
trol, and work along with him to such 
an extent, that, in a different mood, 
when you are cold and critical, instead 
of sympathetic, you will be apt to 
fancy that the loftier merits of the 
picture were of your own dreaming, 
not of his creating. 

— The Marble Faun. 



April nth. 

The afternoon being far declined, 
the sunshine was almost pensive, and 
the shade almost cheerful, glory and 



96 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

gloom were mingled In the placid 
light; as If the spirits of the Day and 
Evening had met In friendship under 
those trees, and found themselves 
akin. 

— Twice Told Tales. 



April 1 2 th. 

How often Is It the case, that, when 
Impossibilities have come to pass, and 
dreams have condensed their misty 
substance Into tangible realities, we 
find ourselves calm, and even coldly 
self-possessed, amid circumstances 
which It would have been a delirium 
of joy or agony to anticipate ! Fate 
delights to thwart us thus. Passion 
will choose his own time to rush upon 
the scene, and lingers sluggishly be- 
hind, when an appropriate adjust- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 97 

ment of events would seem to summon 
his appearance. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

April Ijth, 

Man's own youth Is the world's 
youth; at least, he feels as if It were, 
and Imagines that the earth's granite 
substance Is something not yet hard- 
ened, and which he can mold into 
whatever shape he likes. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

April I ph. 

If you look closely Into the matter 
It will be seen that whatever appears 
most vagrant, and utterly purpose- 
less, turns out. In the end, to have 
been Impelled the most surely on a 
preordained and unswerving track. 



98 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

Chance and change love to deal with 
men's settled plans, not with their 
Idle vagaries. If we desire unex- 
pected and unimaginable events, we 
should contrive an iron framework, 
such as we fancy may compel the 
future to take one inevitable shape; 
then comes in the unexpected, and 
shatters our design in fragments. 

— The Marble Faun. 



April l^th. 

These nearer heaps of fleecy vapor 
— methinks I could roll and toss upon 
them the whole day long! — seem 
scattered here and there for the re- 
pose of tired pilgrims through the 
sky. Perhaps — for who can tell? — 
beautiful spirits are disporting them- 
selves there, and will bless my mortal 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 99 

eye with the brief appearance of their 
curly locks of golden light, and laugh- 
ing faces, fair and faint as the people 
of a rosy dream. 

— Twice Told Tales, 

April 1 6th, 

Strange, that the finer and deeper 
nature, whether in man or woman, 
while possessed of every other delicate 
instinct, should so often lack that most 
invaluable one, of preserving itself 
from contamination with what is of a 
baser kind! 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

April lyth. 

Grief is such a leveller, with its own 
dignity and its own humility, that the 
noble and the peasant, the beggar and 

LOfC. 



100 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

the monarch, will waive their preten- 
sions to external rank, without the 
officiousness of Interference on our 
part. If pride — the Influence of the 
world's false distinctions — remain In 
the heart, then sorrow lacks the 
earnestness which makes It holy and 
reverend. It loses its reality, and 
becomes a miserable shadow. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

April i8th. 

It is a great mistake to try to put 
our best thoughts into human lan- 
guage. When we ascend Into the 
higher regions of emotion and spirit- 
ual enjoyment, they are only express- 
ible by such grand hieroglyphics as 
these around us. 

— The Marble Faun. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 101 

April igth. 

It makes me melancholy to see how 
like fools some very sensible people 
act, In the matter of choosing wives. 
They perplex their judgments by a 
most undue attention to little niceties 
of personal appearance, habits, dis- 
position, and other trifles, which con- 
cern nobody but the lady herself. An 
unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed 
nothing short of perfection, keeps his 
heart and hand till both get so old 
and withered, that no tolerable woman 
will accept them. Now, this Is the 
very height of absurdity. A kind 
Providence has so skillfully adapted 
sex to sex, and the mass of Individuals 
to each other, that, with certain obvi- 
ous exceptions, any male and female 
may be moderately happy In the mar- 



102 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

ried state. The true rule Is, to ascer- 
tain that the match is fundamentally 
a good one, and then to take it for 
granted that all minor objections, 
should there be such, will vanish, if 
you let them alone. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

April 20th. 

Moonlight, and the sentiment in 
man's heart responsive to it, are the 
greatest renovators and reformers. 
And all other reform and renovation, 
I suppose, will prove to be no better 
than moonshine. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

April 2 1st. 

It is remarkable, that persons who 
speculate the most boldly often con- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 103 

form with the most perfect quietude 
to the external regulations of society. 
The thought suffices them, without In- 
vesting Itself In the flesh and blood 
of action. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 

April 22d. 

The step of time stole onward, and 
soon brought merry Christmas round 
again, with glad and solemn worship 
In the churches, and sports, games, fes- 
tivals, and everywhere the bright face 
of Joy beside the household fire. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

April 23d. 

There Is something truer and more 
real, than what we can see with the 
eyes, and touch with the finger. 

— Young Goodrnan Brown. 



104 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

April 24th. 

Come ! another log upon the 
hearth. True, our little parlor is 
comfortable, especially here where 
the old man sits in his old armchair; 
but on Thanksgiving night the blaze 
should dance higher up the chimney 
and send a shower of sparks Into the 
outer darkness. Toss on an armful 
of those dry oak chips, the last relics 
of the " Mermaid's " knee-timbers — 
the bones of your namesake, Susan. 
Higher yet, and clearer, be the blaze, 
till our cottage windows glow the rud- 
diest In the village, and the light of 
our household mirth flash far across 
the bay to Nahant. 

— The Village Uncle, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 105 

Jpril 25th. 

How it Strengthens the poor human 
spirit in its reliance on His provi- 
dence, to ascend but this little way 
above the common level, and so at- 
tain a somewhat wider glimpse of His 
dealings with mankind! He doeth 
all things right! His will be done! 
— The Marble Faun. 



April 26th, 

Our first youth is of no value; for 
we are never conscious of it, until 
after it is gone. But sometimes — al- 
ways, I suspect, unless one is exceed- 
ingly unfortunate — there comes a 
sense of second youth, gushing out 
of the heart's joy at being in love; 
or, possibly, it may come to crown 



106 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

some Other grand festival in life, if 
any other such there be. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



April 2yth. 

All persons, chronically diseased, 
are egotists, whether the disease be of 
the mind or body; whether sin, sor- 
row, or merely the more tolerable 
calamity of some endless pain, or mis- 
chief among the cords of mortal life. 
Such individuals are made acutely 
conscious of a self, by the torture in 
which it dwells. Self, therefore, 
grows to be so prominent an object 
with them, that they cannot but pre- 
sent it to the face of every casual 
passer-by. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 107 



April 28th. 

Only put yourself beyond hazard, 
as to the real basis of matrimonial 
bliss, and it is scarcely to be imagined 
what miracles, in the way of reconcil- 
ing smaller Incongruities, connubial 
love will effect. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

April 2gth. 

After all, what a good world we 
live In! How good and beautiful! 
How young It is, too, with nothing 
really rotten or age-worn in It. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

April ^Oth. 

To choose another figure. It Is sad 
that hearts which have their well- 



108 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

spring In the Infinite, and contain in- 
exhaustible sympathies, should ever be 
doomed to pour themselves into shal- 
low vessels, and thus lavish their rich 
affections on the ground. 

— Mosses frojji an Old Manse. 



MAY 



May 1st. 

The sculptor, habitually drawing 
many of the images and illustrations 
of his thoughts from the plastic art, 
fancied that the scene represented the 
process of the Creator, when He held 
the new. Imperfect earth in His hand, 
and modeled It. 

'' What a magic Is In mist and 
vapor among the mountains! " he ex- 
claimed. " With their help, one sin- 
gle scene becomes a thousand. The 
cloud scenery gives such variety to a 
hilly landscape that It would be worth 
while to journalize Its aspect from 
hour to hour. A cloud, however — 
as I have myself experienced — is apt 
to grow solid and as heavy as a stone 



112 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

the Instant that you take In hand to 
describe It. But, In my own heart, I 
have found great use In clouds. Such 
silvery ones as those to the northward, 
for example, have often suggested 
sculpturesque groups, figures, and at- 
titudes; they are especially rich in 
attitudes of living repose, which a 
sculptor only hits upon by the rarest 
good fortune." 

— The Marble Faun. 



May 2d, 

Oh, that I could soar up Into 
the very zenith, where man never 
breathed nor eagle ever flew, and 
where the ethereal azure melts away 
from the eye and appears only a deep- 
ened shade of nothingness ! 

— Twice Told Tales, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 113 

May 3d. 

There is at least this good In a life 
of toll, that It takes the nonsense and 
fancy work out of a man, and leaves 
nothing but what truly belongs to him. 
If a farmer can make poetry at the 
plow-tail. It must be because his 
nature insists on it; and if that be the 
case, let him make it, in Heaven's 
name! 

— The Blithedale Romance. 



May 4th, 

For it Is thus, that with only an 
inconsiderable change, the gladdest 
objects and existences become the 
saddest; hope fading Into disap- 
pointment; joy darkening into grief, 
and festal splendor Into funereal dusk- 



114 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

Iness ; and all evolving, as their moral, 
a grim identity between gay things 
and sorrowful ones. Only give them 
a little time, and they turn out to be 
just alike! 

— The Marble Faun. 



May ^th. 

But the black, lowering sky, as I 
turned my eyes upward, wore, doubt- 
less, the same visage as when it 
frowned upon the ante-Revolutionary 
New Englanders. The wintry blast 
had the same shriek that was fa- 
miliar to their ears. The Old South 
church, too, still pointed its antique 
spire into the darkness and was lost 
between earth and Heaven, and as I 
passed, its clock, which had warned 
so many generations how transitory 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 115 

was their lifetime, spoke heavily and 
slowly the same unregarded moral to 
myself. 

— Edward Randolph's Portrait. 

May 6th. 

Sweet has been the charm of child- 
hood on my spirit throughout my 
ramble with little Annie ! Say not 
that it has been a waste of precious 
moments, an idle matter, a babble of 
childish talk, and a reverie of childish 
Imaginations, about topics unworthy 
of a grown man's notice. 

— Twice Told Tales. 

May yth. 

The trees were not yet In full leaf, 
but had budded forth sufficiently to 
throw an airy shadow, while the sun- 



116 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

shine filled them with green light. 
There were moss-grown rocks half- 
hidden among the old brown fallen 
leaves; there were rotten tree trunks 
lying at full length where they had 
long ago fallen; there were decayed 
boughs that had been shaken down by 
the wintry gales and were scattered 
everywhere about. But still, though 
these things looked so aged, the aspect 
of the wood was that of the newest 
life, for, whichever way you turned 
your eyes, something fresh and green 
was springing forth, so as to be ready 
for the summer. 

— A Wonder Book. 



May 8th. 

Nothing can be more picturesque 
than an old grapevine, with almost a 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 117 

trunk of its own, clinging fast around 
its supporting tree. Nor does the 
picture lack Its moral. You might 
twist It to more than one grave pur- 
pose, as you saw how the knotted ser- 
pentine growth Imprisoned within Its 
strong embrace the friend that had 
supported Its tender Infancy ; and how 
(as seemingly flexible natures are 
prone to do) It converted the sturdier 
tree entirely to Its own selfish ends, 
extending Its Innumerable arms on 
every bough, and permitting hardly 
a leaf to sprout except Its own. 

— The Marble Faun. 



May gth. 

Oh, how stubbornly does love — or 
even that cunning semblance of love 
which flourishes In the Imagination, 



118 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

but Strikes no depth of root into the 
heart — how stubbornly does it hold 
its faith, until the moment come, when 
it is doomed to vanish into thin mist! 
— Young Goodman Brown. 



May loth. 

Giovanni knew not what to dread; 
still less did he know what to hope; 
yet hope and dread kept a continual 
warfare in his breast, alternately van- 
quishing one another and starting up 
afresh to renew the contest. Blessed 
are all simple emotions, be they dark 
or bright! It is the lurid intermix- 
ture of the two that produces the 
illuminating blaze of the infernal 
regions. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 119 



May nth. 

Only this Is such an odd and Incom- 
prehensible world. The more I look 
at It, the more It puzzles me, and I 
begin to suspect that a man's bewilder- 
ment Is the measure of his wisdom. 
Men and women, and children, too, 
are such strange creatures, that one 
never can be certain that he really 
knows them ; nor ever guess what they 
have been, from what he sees them to 
be now. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



May J2th, 

But stay! A little speck of azure 
has widened In the western heavens; 
the sunbeams find a passage, and go 
rejoicing through the tempest; and on 



120 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

yonder darkest cloud, born, like hal- 
lowed hopes, of the glory of another 
world, and the trouble and tears of 
this, brightens forth the Rainbow ! 

— Twice Told Tales. 

May 13th. 

And, after all, the idea may have 
been no dream, but rather a poet's 
reminiscence of a period when man's 
affinity with nature was more strict, 
and his fellowship with every living 
thing more intimate and dear. 

— The Marble Faun. 

May 14th, 

So far as my experience goes, men 
of genius are fairly gifted with the 
social qualities; and in this age, there 
appears to be a fellovz-feeling among 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 121 

them, which had not heretofore been 
developed. As men, they ask nothing 
better than to be on equal terms with 
their fellow men ; and as authors, they 
have thrown aside their proverbial 
jealousy, and acknowledge a generous 
brotherhood. 

— Young Goodman Brown, 

May 15th. 

Most men — and certainly I could 
not always claim to be one of the ex- 
ceptions — have a natural indifference. 
If not an absolutely hostile feeling, 
toward those whom disease, or weak- 
ness, or calamity of any kind, causes 
to falter and faint amid the rude 
jostle of our selfish existence. The 
education of Christianity, It Is true, 
the sympathy of a like experience, and 



122 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

the example of women, m.ay soften, 
and, possibly, subvert, this ugly char- 
acteristic of our sex; but it is orig- 
inally there, and has likewise its 
analogy in the practice of our brute 
brethren, who hunt the sick or dis- 
abled member of the herd from 
among them, as an enemy. It Is for 
this reason that the stricken deer goes 
apart, and the sick lion grimly with- 
draws himself into his den. Except 
in love, or the attachments of kindred, 
or other very long and habitual affec- 
tion, we really have no tenderness. 
— The Blithedale Romance, 

May 1 6th. 

Morally, as well as materially, 
there was a coarser fiber In those wives 
and maidens of old English birth and 



XATHAXIEL HAWTHORXE 123 

breeding, than in their fair descend- 
ants, separated from them by a series 
of six or seven generations; for, 
throughout that chain of ancestry, 
every successive mother has trans- 
mitted to her child a fainter bloom, a 
more delicate and briefer beauty, and 
a slighter physical frame, if not a 
character of less force and solidity, 
then her own. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 



May I ph. 

Now, the chair in which Grand- 
father sat was made of oak, which 
had grown dark with age, but had 
been rubbed and polished till it shone 
as bright as mahogany. It was very 
large and heavy, and had a back that 
rose high above Grandfather's white 



124 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

head. This back was curiously carved 
in open work, so as to represent flow- 
ers, and foliage, and other devices, 
which the children had often gazed 
at, but could never understand what 
they meant. On the very tip-top of 
the chair, over the head of Grand- 
father himself, was a likeness of a 
lion's head, which had such a savage 
grin that you would almost expect to 
hear it growl and snarl. 

— Grandfathers Chair. 

May 1 8th. 

Methinks it is a token of healthy 
and gentle characteristics, when wom- 
en of high thoughts and accomplish- 
ments love to sew; especially as they 
are never more at home with their 
own hearts than while so occupied. 
— The Marble Faun. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 125 



May igth. 

Nature would measure time by the 
succession of thoughts and acts which 
constitute real life, and not by hours 
of emptiness. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



May 20th, 

Life figures itself to me as a festal 
or funereal procession. All of us 
have our places, and are to move on- 
ward under the direction of the Chief 
Marshal. The grand difficulty re- 
sults from the invariably mistaken 
principles on which the deputy mar- 
shals seek to arrange this immense 
concourse of people, so much more 
numerous than those that train their 



126 BEAUTIFUL THOU GET B FROM 

interminable length through streets 
and highways in times of political ex- 
citement. 

— Young Goodman Brown, 



May 2 1st. 

Every morning and evening the 
Lady Arbella gave up her great chair 
to one of the ministers, who took his 
place In it and read passages from the 
Bible to his companions. And thus, 
with prayers, and pious conversation, 
and frequent singing of hymns, which 
the breezes caur;ht from their lips and 
scattered far over the desolate waves, 
they prosecuted their voyage, and 
sailed into the harbor of Salem in the 
month of June. 

— Grandfathe/s Chair. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 127 



May 2 2d. 

It was no great distance, In those 
days, from the prison-door to the 
market-place. Measured by the pris- 
oner's experience, however. It might 
be reckoned a journey of some length; 
for, haughty as her demeanor was, 
she perchance underwent an agony 
from every footstep of those that 
thronged to see her, as If her heart 
had been flung Into the street for 
them all to spurn and trample upon. 
In our nature, however, there is a pro- 
vision, alike marvelous and merciful 
that the sufferer should never know 
the intensity of what he endures by Its 
present torture, but chiefly by the pang 
that rankles after It. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 



128 BEAUTIFUL THOU GET ti FROM 

May 23d. 

It Is not at all times that one can 
gain admittance Into this edifice; al- 
though most persons enter It at some 
period or other of their lives — If not 
In their waking moments, then by the 
universal passport of a dream. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

May 24th. 

Of all the events which constitute 
a person's biography, there Is scarcely 
one — none, certainly of anything like 
a similar Importance — to which the 
world so easily reconciles Itself as to 
his death. In most other cases and 
contingencies, the Individual Is present 
am.ong us, mixed up with the dally 
revolution of affairs, and affording a 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 129 

definite point for observation. At 
his decease there is only a vacancy 
and a momentary eddy — very small, 
as compared with the apparent mag- 
nitude of the Ingurgitated object — 
and a bubble or two, ascending out 
of the black depth and bursting at the 
surface. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



May 2^th. 

Nature, in beast, fowl, and tree, 
and earth, flood, and sky, is what it 
was of old; but sin, care, and self- 
consciousness have set the human por- 
tion of the world askew ; and thus the 
simplest character is ever the soonest 
to go astray. 

— The Marble Faun. 



130 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 



May 26th, 

Oh, friend, canst thou not hear 
and answer me? Break down the 
barrier between us ! Grasp my hand ! 
Speak! Listen! A few words, per- 
haps, might satisfy the feverish 
yearning of my soul for some mas- 
ter thought, that should guide me 
through this labyrinth of life, teach- 
ing wherefore I was born, and how to 
do my task on earth, and what Is 
death. Alas! Even that unreal 
image should forget to ape me, and 
smile at these vain questions. Thus 
do mortals deify, as it were, a mere 
shadow of themselves, a specter of 
human reason, and ask of that to 
unveil the mysteries, which Divine 
Intelligence has revealed so far as 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 131 

needful to our guidance, and hid the 
rest. 

Farewell, Monsieur du MIroir. 
Of you, perhaps, as of many men. It 
may be doubted whether you are the 
wiser, though your whole business is 
Reflection. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



May 2yth. 

Is there not a deep moral in the 
tale? Could the result of one or all 
our deeds be shadowed forth and set 
before us — some would call it Fate, 
and hurry onward — others be swept 
along by their passionate desires — 
and none be turned aside by the 
Prophetic Pictures. 

— Twice Told Tales. 



132 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

May 28th, 

It takes down the solitary pride of 
man, beyond most other things, to 
find the Impracticability of flinging 
aside affections that have grown Irk- 
some. The bands that were silken 
once are apt to become Iron fetters 
when we desire to shake them off. 
Our souls, after all, are not our own. 
We convey a property in them to 
those with whom we associate; but to 
what extent can never be known, un- 
til we feel the tug, the agony, of our 
abortive effort to resume an exclusive 
sway over ourselves. 

— The Bltthedale Romance. 

May 2gth. 

The fields and wood-paths have as 
yet few charms to entice the wanderer. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 133 

In a walk, the other day, I found no 
violets, nor anemones, nor anything 
in the likeness of a flower. It was 
worth while, however, to ascend our 
opposite hill, for the sake of gaining 
a general idea of the advance of 
spring, which I had hitherto been 
studying in its minute developments. 
— Young Goodman Brown. 



May joth. 

We do ourselves wrong, and too 
meanly estimate the Holiness above 
us, when we deem that any act or 
enjoyment, good in itself, is not good 
to do religiously. 

— The Marble Faun. 



134 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

May ^ist. 

Strength Is incomprehensible by 
weakness, and, therefore, the more 
terrible. There Is no greater bug- 
bear than a strong-willed relative In 
the circle of his own connections. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 



JUNE 



t 



June 1st. 

Sometimes, it is true, the spiritual 
fountain is kept pure by a wisdom 
within itself, and sparkles into the 
light of Heaven, without a stain from 
the earthly strata through which it had 
gushed upward. And sometimes, 
even here on earth, the pure mingles 
with pure, and the inexhaustible is 
recompensed with the infinite. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



June 2d. 

Methinks, for a person whose in- 
stinct bids him rather to pore over the 
current of life than to plunge into its 
tumultuous waves, no undesirable re- 



138 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

treat were a toll-house beside some 
thronged thoroughfare of the land. 
— Twice Told Tales. 



June ^d. 

There Is hardly a more difficult ex- 
ercise of fancy than, while gazing at 
a figure of melancholy age, to recreate 
its youth, and, without entirly oblit- 
erating the identity of form and fea- 
tures, to restore those graces which 
Time has snatched away. Some old 
people — especially women — so age- 
worn and woeful are they, seem never 
to have been young and gay. It is 
easier to conceive that such gloomy 
phantoms were sent into the world 
as withered and decrepit as we behold 
them now, with sympathies only for 
pain and grief, to watch at death- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 139 

beds and weep at funerals. Even 
the sable garments of their widow- 
hood appear essential to their exist- 
ence; all their attributes combine to 
render them darksome shadows creep- 
ing strangely amid the sunshine of 
human life. Yet It Is no unprofitable 
task to take one of these doleful 
creatures and set Fancy resolutely at 
work to brighten the dim eye, and 
darken the silvery locks, and paint 
the ashen cheek with rose-color, and 
repair the shrunken and crazy form, 
till a dewy maiden shall be seen In the 
old matron's elbow-chair. The mira- 
cle being wrought, then let the years 
roll back again, each sadder than the 
last, and the whole weight of age 
and sorrow settle down upon the 
youthful figure. Wrinkles and fur- 
rows, the handwriting of Time, may 



140 BEAUTIFUL TH OUGHTS FROM 

thus be deciphered and found to con- 
tain deep lessons of thought and feel- 
ing. 

— Edward Fane's Rosebud, 

June ^th. 

Life, within doors, has few pleas- 
anter prospects than a neatly arranged 
and well-provisioned breakfast-table. 
We come to it freshly, in the dewy 
youth of the day, and when our spir- 
itual and sensual elements are in bet- 
ter accord than at a later period; so 
that the material delights of the morn- 
ing meal are capable of being fully 
enjoyed, without any very grievous 
reproaches, whether gastric or con- 
scientious, for yielding even a trifle 
overmuch to the animal department 
of our nature. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 141 

June ^th. 

Old associations cling to the mind 
with astonishing tenacity. Daily cus- 
tom grows up about us like a stone 
wall, and consolidates itself into al- 
most as material an entity as man- 
kind's strongest architecture. It is 
sometimes a serious question with me, 
whether ideas be not really visible 
and tangible, and endowed with all 
the other qualities of matter. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

June 6th, 

But there Is a wisdom that looks 
grave, and sneers at merriment; and 
again a deeper wisdom, that stoops to 
be gay as often as occasion serves, 
and oftenest avails itself of shallow 



142 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

and trifling grounds of mirth; be- 
cause, if we wait for more substantial 
ones, we seldom can be gay at all. 
—The Marble Faun, 

June yth. 

Of all bird-voices, none are more 
sweet and cheerful to my ear than 
those of swallows, in the dim, sun- 
streaked interior of a lofty barn; 
they address the heart with even a 
closer sympathy than Robin Red- 
breast. But, indeed, all these winged 
people, that dwell in the vicinity 
of homesteads, seem to partake of 
human nature, and possess the germ, 
if not the development, of immortal 
souls. We hear them saying their 
melodious prayers, at morning's blush 
and eventide. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 143 



June 8th. 

There Is, I believe, only one right 
and one wrong; and I do not under- 
stand, and may God keep me from 
ever understanding, how two things 
so totally unlike can be mistaken for 
one another; nor how two mortal 
foes, as Right and Wrong surely are, 
can work together In the same deed. 
— The Marble Faun. 



June gth. 

Through the dim length of the 
apartment, where crimson curtains 
muffled the glare of sunshine and 
created a rich obscurity, the three 
guests drew near the silver-haired old 
man. Memory, with a finger between 
the leaves of her huge volume, placed 



144 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

herself at his right hand. Conscience, 
with her face still hidden In the dusky 
mantle, took her station on the left, 
so as to be next his heart ; while Fancy 
set down her picture-box upon the 
table, with the magnifying glass con- 
venient to his eye. 

— Twice Told Tales. 



June loth. 

Thank Providence for Spring! 
The earth — and man himself, by 
sympathy with his birthplace — would 
be far other than we find them. If life 
tolled wearily onward, without this 
periodical infusion of the primal 
spirit. Will the world ever be so de- 
cayed, that Spring may not renew its 
greenness? Can man be so dismally 
age-stricken, that no faintest sunshine 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 145 

of his youth may revisit him once a 
year? It Is Impossible. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

June iith. 

Phoebe, It Is probable, had but a 
very imperfect comprehension of the 
character over which she had thrown 
so beneficent a spell. Nor was It 
necessary. The fire upon the hearth 
can gladden a whole semi-circle of 
faces around about it, but need not 
know the individuality of one among 
them all. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

June I2th. 

Decency, and external conscience, 
often produce a far fairer outside, 
than Is warranted by the stains within. 



146 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

And be It owned, on the other hand, 
that a man seldom repeats to his near- 
est friend, any more than he reahzes 
in act, the purest wishes, which, at 
some blessed time or other, have 
arisen from the depths of his nature. 
— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



June i^th. 

Man must not disclaim his brother- 
hood, even with the guiltiest, since, 
though his hand be clean, his heart 
has surely been polluted by the flitting 
phantoms of iniquity. He must feel 
that when he shall knock at the gate 
of Heaven, no semblance of an un- 
spotted life can entitle him to entrance 
there. Penitence must kneel, and 
Mercy come from the footstool of 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 147 

the throne, or that golden gate will 
never open! 

— Twice Told Tales. 



June 14th. 

You look through a vista of cen- 
tury beyond century — through much 
shadow, and a little sunshine — 
through barbarism and civilization, 
alternating with one another, like 
actors that have pre-arranged their 
parts — through a broad pathway of 
progressive generations bordered by 
palaces and temples, and bestridden 
by old, triumphal arches, until, In the 
distance, you behold the obelisks, with 
their unintelligible inscriptions, hint- 
ing at a past Infinitely more remote 
than history can define. Your own 
life is as nothing, when compared 



148 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

with that Immeasurable distance; but 
still you demand, none the less ear- 
nestly, a gleam of sunshine, Instead of 
a speck of shadow, on the step or two 
that will bring you to your quiet rest. 
— The Marble Faun. 



June i^th. 

Alas, for the worn and heavy soul. 
If, whether In youth or age. It has 
outlived Its privilege of spring-time 
sprlghtllness ! From such a soul, the 
world must hope no reformation of 
Its evil — no sympathy with the lofty 
faith and gallant struggles of those 
who contend In Its behalf. Summer 
works In the present, and thinks not 
of the future; Autumn Is a rich con- 
servative; Winter has utterly lost Its 
faith, and clings tremulously to the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 149 

remembrance of what has been; but 
Spring, with Its outgushing life, Is the 
true type of the Movement ! 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

June i6th. 

It is often Instructive to take the 
woman's, the private and domestic 
view of a public man; nor can any- 
thing be more curious than the vast 
discrepancy between portraits In- 
tended for engraving, and the pencil- 
sketches that pass from hand to hand 
behind the original's back. 

— The House of the Seven Gables, 

June ijth. 

And be the stern and sad truth 
spoken, that the breach which guilt 
has once made Into the human soul Is 



150 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

never, in this mortal state, repaired. 
It may be watched and guarded; so 
that the enemy shall not force his way 
again into the citadel, and might even, 
in his subsequent assaults, select some 
other avenue, in preference to that 
where he had formerly succeeded. 
But there is still the ruined wall, and, 
near it, the stealthy tread of the foe 
that would win over again his unfor- 
gotten triumph. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 



June i8th. 

There is a kind of ludicrous unfit- 
ness in the idea of a time-stricken and 
grandfatherly lilac-bush. The anal- 
ogy holds good in human life. Per- 
sons who can only be graceful and 
ornamental — who can give the world 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 151 

nothing but flowers — should die 
young, and never be seen with gray 
hair and wrinkles, any more than the 
flower shrubs with mossy bark and 
blighted foliage, like the lilacs under 
my window. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



June igth. 

What an instrument is the human 
voice ! How wonderfully responsive 
to every emotion of the human soul ! 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 

June 20th. 

The years, after all, have a kind of 
emptiness, when we spend too many 
of them on a foreign shore. We 
defer the reality of life, in such cases. 



152 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

until a future moment, when we shall 
again breathe our native air; but, 
by and by, there are no future mo- 
ments; or. If we do return, we find 
that the native air has lost Its Invig- 
orating quality, and that life has 
shifted Its reality to the spot where 
we have deemed ourselves only tem- 
porary residents. Thus, between two 
countries, we have none at all, or only 
that little space of either. In which 
we finally lay down our discontented 
bones. It Is wise, therefore, to come 
back betimes, or never. 

— The Marble Faun. 



June 2 1 St. 

She had flung It Into Infinite space I 
— she had drawn an hour's free 
breath! — and here again was the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 153 

scarlet misery, glittering on the old 
spot! So it ever Is, whether thus 
typified or no, that an evil deed In- 
vests Itself with the character of 
doom. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 



June 22d, 

Is not Nature better than a book? 
— Is not the human heart deeper than 
any system of philosophy? — Is not 
life replete with more Instruction than 
past observers have found It possible 
to write down In maxims? Be of 
good cheer! The great book of 
Time is still spread wide open before 
us; and. If we read It aright, It will 
be to us a volume of eternal Truth. 
— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



154 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

June 2jd, 

Old age is not venerable, when it 
embodies Itself In lilacs, rose bushes, 
or any other ornamental shrubs; it 
seems as If such plants, as they grow 
only for beauty, ought to flourish 
only In Immortal youth, or, at least, 
to die before their sad decrepitude. 
— Young Goodman Brown. 



June 2ph, 

My spirit wanders forth afar, but 
finds no resting place and comes shiv- 
ering back. It Is time that I were 
hence. But grudge me not the day 
that has been spent In seclusion which 
yet was not solitude, since the great 
sea has been my companion, and the 
little sea birds my friends, and the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 155 

wind has told me his secrets, and 
airy shapes have flitted around me in 
my hermitage. Such companionship 
works an effect upon a man's charac- 
ter as if he had been admitted to the 
society of creatures that are not mor- 
tal. And when at noontide I tread 
the crowded streets, the influence of 
this day will still be felt; so that I 
shall walk among men kindly and as 
a brother, with affection and sympa- 
thy, but yet shall not melt into the 
indistinguishable mass of humankind. 
I shall think my own thoughts and 
feel my own emotions and possess my 
individuality unviolated. 

— Footprints on the Seashore. 

June 2^th. 

Sweet must have been the spring- 
time of Eden, when no earlier year 



156 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

had Strewn Its decay upon the virgin 
turf, and no former experience had 
ripened into summer, and faded into 
autumn, in the hearts of its inhabit- 
ants! That was a world worth hv- 
ing in! Oh, thou murmurer, it is 
out of the very wantonness of such a 
life, that thou feignest these idle 
lamentations ! There is no decay. 
Each human soul is the first created 
inhabitant of its own Eden. 

— Young Goodman Brown, 

June 26th. 

There is a wonderful insight In 
Heaven's broad and simple sunshine. 
While we give It credit only for 
depicting the merest surface, it actu- 
ally brings out the secret character 
withv a truth that no painter would 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 157 

ever venture upon, even could he 
detect it. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

June 2yth. 

It may be, however — O, transport- 
ing and triumphant thought! — that 
the great-grandchildren of the pres- 
ent race may sometimes think kindly 
of the scribbler of bygone days, when 
the antiquary of days to come, among 
the sites memorable In the town's his- 
tory, shall point out the locality of 
The Town Pump ! 

— The Custom House, 

June 28th. 

No author, without a trial, can 
conceive of the difficulty of writing 
a romance about a country where 



158 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHT}^ FROM 

there is no shadow, no antiquity, no 
mystery, no picturesque and gloomy 
wrong, nor anything but a common- 
place prosperity, in broad and simple 
daylight, as is happily the case with 
my dear native land. It will be very 
long, I trust, before romance writers 
may find congenial and easily handled 
themes, either In the annals of our 
stalwart republic, or In any character- 
istic and probable events of our in- 
dividual lives. Romance and poetry, 
Ivy, lichens, and wall-flowers need 
ruin to make them grow. 

— The Marble Faun. 



June 2gth. 

No man, for any considerable pe- 
riod, can wear one face to himself, 
and another to the multitude, without 



k 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 159 

finally getting bewildered as to which 
may be the true. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 



June joth. 

What needs an earthly roof be- 
tween the Deity and his worshipers? 
Our faith can well afford to lose all 
the drapery that even the holiest men 
have thrown around it, and be only 
the more sublime in its simplicity. 
— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



JULY 



July 1st, 

It being her first day of complete 
estrangement from rural objects, 
Phoebe found an unexpected charm 
In this little nook of grass, and foli- 
age, and aristocratic flowers, and 
plebeian vegetables. The eye of 
Heaven seemed to look down into it 
pleasantly, and with a peculiar smile, 
as if glad to perceive that nature, else- 
where overwhelmed, and driven out 
of the dusty town, had here been able 
to retain a breathing place. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

July 2d. 

At this autumnal season the preci- 
pice is decked with variegated splen- 



164 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

dor. Trailing wreaths of scarlet 
flaunt from the summit downward; 
tufts of yellow-flowering shrubs and 
rose bushes, with their reddened 
leaves and glossy seedberries, sprout 
from each crevice; at every glance I 
detect some new light or shade of 
beauty, all contrasting with the stern 
gray rock. A rill of water trickles 
down the cliffs and fills a little cistern 
near the base. I drain it at a draught, 
and find it fresh and pure. This 
recess shall be my dining-hall. And 
what the feast? A few biscuits made 
savory by soaking them in sea-water, 
a tuft of samphire gathered from the 
beach, and an apple for the dessert. 
By this time the little rill has filled its 
reservoir again, and as I quaff it I 
thank God more heartily than for a 
civic banquet that He gives me the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 165 

healthful appetite to make a feast of 
bread and water. 

— Footprints on the Seashore. 

July jd. 

Apple trees, on the other hand, 
grow old without reproach. Let them 
live as long as they may, and contort 
themselves into whatever perversity 
of shape they please, and deck their 
withered limbs with a springtime 
gaudiness of pink-blossoms, still they 
are respectable, even if they afford 
us only an apple or two in a season. 
Those few apples — or, at all events, 
the remembrance of apples in by-gone 
years — are the atonement which utili- 
tarianism inexorably demands, for the 
privilege of lengthened life. 

— Young Goodman Brown, 



166 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

July ^th. 

But, after all, the most fascinating 
employment is simply to write your 
name in the sand. Draw the letters 
gigantic, so that two strides may 
barely measure them, and three for 
the long strokes; cut deep, that the 
record may be permanent. States- 
men and warriors and poets have 
spent their strength in no better 
cause than this. Is it accomplished? 
Return, then, in an hour or two, and 
seek for this mighty record of a name. 
The sea will have swept over it, even 
as time rolls its effacing waves over 
the names of statesmen and warriors 
and poets. Hark! the surf-waves 
laugh at you. 

— Footprints on the Seashore, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 167 

July ^th. 

Among the delights of Spring, how 
is it possible to forget the birds! 
Even the crows were welcome, as the 
sable harbingers of a brighter and 
livelier race. They visited us before 
the snow was off, but seem mostly to 
have betaken themselves to remote 
depths of the woods, which they 
haunt all summer long. Many a time 
shall I disturb them there, and feel as 
if I had intruded among a company 
of silent worshipers, as they sit in 
Sabbath-stillness among the tree tops. 
— Young Goodman Brown. 

July 6th. 

There was a spiritual quality In 
Phoebe's activity. The life of the 



168 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

long and busy day — spent In occu- 
pations that might so easily have 
taken a squalid and ugly aspect — had 
been made pleasant, and even lovely, 
by the spontaneous grace with which 
these homely duties seemed to bloom 
out of her character; so that labor, 
while she dealt with it, had the easy 
and flexible charm of play. Angels 
do not toil, but let their good works 
grow out of them ; and so did Phoebe. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 

July yth. 

One of the first things that strikes 
the attention, when the white sheet 
of winter Is withdrawn, Is the neglect 
and disarray that lay hidden beneath 
it. Nature Is not cleanly, according 
to our prejudices. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 169 

July 8th, 

How sad a truth — if true It were 
— that Man's age-long endeavor for 
perfection had served only to render 
him the mockery of the Evil Princi- 
ple, from the fatal circumstance of an 
error at the very root of the matter ! 
The heart — the heart — there was the 
little yet boundless sphere, wherein 
existed the original wrong, of which 
the crime and misery of this outward 
world were merely types. Purify 
that inward sphere; and the many 
shapes of evil that haunt the outward, 
and which now seem almost our only 
realities, will turn to shadowy phan- 
toms, and vanish of their own accord. 
But if we go no deeper than the In- 
tellect, and strive, with merely that 
feeble instrument, to discern and rec- 



170 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

tify what is wrong, our whole accom- 
plishment will be a dream. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



July gth. 

Standing in this Hall of Fantasy, 
we perceive what even the earth- 
clogged intellect of man can do, in 
creating circumstances which, though 
we call them shadowy and visionary, 
are scarcely more so than those that 
surround us in actual life. Doubt 
not, then, that man's disembodied 
spirit may recreate Time and the 
World for itself, with all their pecu- 
liar enjoyments, should there still be 
human yearnings amid life eternal 
and infinite. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 171 

July 1 0th, 

A crow, however, has no real pre- 
tensions to religion, in spite of his 
gravity of mien and black attire; he 
Is certainly a thief, and probably an 
Infidel. The gulls are far more re- 
spectable, in a moral point of view. 
These denizens of sea-beaten rocks, 
and haunters of the lonely beach, 
come up our inland river, at this sea- 
son, and soar high overhead, flapping 
their broad wings in the upper sun- 
shine. They are among the most 
picturesque of birds, because they so 
float and rest upon the air, as to be- 
come almost stationary parts of the 
landscape. The Imagination has time 
to grow acquainted with them; they 
have not flitted away in a moment. 
— Young Goodman Brown, 



172 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

July nth. 

Whatever she did, too, was done 
without conscious effort, and with fre- 
quent outbreaks of song, which were 
exceedingly pleasant to the ear. This 
natural tunefulness made Phoebe seem 
like a bird In a shadowy tree, or con- 
veyed the Idea that the stream of life 
warbled through her heart as a brook 
sometimes warbles through a pleasant 
little dell. It betokened the cheerl- 
ness of an active temperament, finding 
joy In Its activity, and therefore, ren- 
dering It beautiful. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

July 1 2th. 

The moment when a man's head 
drops off Is seldom or never, I am In- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 173 

clined to think, precisely the most 
agreeable of his life. Nevertheless, 
like the greater part of our misfor- 
tunes, even so serious a contingency 
brings its remedy and consolation with 
it, if the sufferers will but make the 
best, rather than the worst, of the 
accident which has befallen him. In 
my particular case, the consolatory 
topics were close at hand, and indeed, 
had suggested themselves to my medi- 
tations a considerable time before it 
was requisite to use them. In view 
of my previous weariness of office, and 
vague thoughts of resignation, my 
fortune somewhat resembled that of 
a person who should entertain an idea 
of committing suicide, and, although 
beyond his hopes, meet with the good 
hap to be murdered. 

— The Custom House. 



174 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

July i^th. 

Among many morals which press 
upon us from the poor minister's mis- 
erable experience, we put only this 
into a sentence : "Be true ! Be true ! 
Be true ! Show freely to the world, 
if not your worst, yet some trait 
whereby the worst may be Inferred!" 
— The Scarlet Letter. 

July i^th. 

Not that beauty Is worthy of less 
than Immortality — no, the beautiful 
should live forever — and thence, per- 
haps, the sense of Impropriety, when 
we see it triumphed over by time. 
— Young Goodman Brown. 

July l^th. 

But still the good old sculptor mur- 
mured, and stumbled, as it were, over 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 175 

the gravestones amid which he had 
walked through life. Whether he 
were right or wrong, I had grown the 
wiser from our companionship and 
from my observations of nature and 
character as displayed by those who 
came, with their old griefs or their 
new ones, to get them recorded upon 
his slabs of marble. And yet with 
my gain of wisdom I had likewise 
gained perplexity; for there was a 
strange doubt in my mind whether 
the dark shadowing of this life, the 
sorrows and regrets, have not as much 
real comfort in them — leaving relig- 
ious influences out of the question — 
as what we term life's joys. 

— Chippings With a Chisel. 



176 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

July 1 6th. 

The smaller birds — the little song- 
sters of the woods, and those that 
haunt man's dwellings, and claim 
human friendship by building their 
nests under the sheltering eaves, or 
among the orchard trees — these re- 
quire a touch more delicate, and a 
gentler heart than mine, to do them 
justice. Their outburst of melody Is 
like a brook let loose from wintry 
chains. We need not deem it a too 
high and solemn word, to call It a 
hymn of praise to the Creator; since 
Nature, who pictures the reviving 
year In so many sights of beauty, has 
expressed the sentiment of renewed 
life In no other sound, save the notes 
of these blessed birds. 

— Young Goodman Brown, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 177 

July lyth. 

It Is a curious subject of observa- 
tion and Inquiry, whether hatred and 
love be not the same thing at bottom. 
Each, In Its utmost development, sup- 
poses a high degree of Intimacy and 
heart-knowledge; each renders one 
Individual dependent for the food of 
his affections and spiritual life upon 
another; each leaves the passionate 
lover, or the no less passionate hater, 
forlorn and desolate by the with- 
drawal of his subject. Philosophi- 
cally considered, therefore, the two 
passions seem essentially the same, 
except that one happens to be seen In 
a celestial radiance, and the other In 
a dusky and lurid glow. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 



178 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 



July 1 8th, 

Little Phoebe was one of those per- 
sons who possess, as their exclusive 
patrimony, the gift of practical ar- 
rangement. It is a kind of natural 
magic that enables these favored ones 
to bring out the hidden capabilities of 
things around them; and particularly 
to give a look of comfort and hab- 
Itableness to any place which, for 
however brief a period, may happen 
to be their home. A wild hut of 
underbrush, tossed together by way- 
farers through the primitive forest, 
would acquire the home aspect by 
one night's lodging of such a woman, 
and would retain it long after her 
quiet figure had disappeared into the 
surrounding shade. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 179 



July igth. 

The truth seems to be, however, 
that, when he casts his leaves forth 
upon the wind, the author addresses, 
not the many who will fling aside his 
volume, or never take it up, but the 
few who will understand him, better 
than most of his schoolmates or life- 
mates. Some authors, indeed, do far 
more than this, and indulge them- 
selves in such confidential depths of 
revelation as could fittingly be ad- 
dressed, only and exclusively, to the 
one heart and mind, of perfect sym- 
pathy, as if the printed book, thrown 
at large on the wide world, were cer- 
tain to find out the divided segment 
of the writer's own nature, and 
complete his circle of existence by 



180 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

bringing him into communion with 
it. 

— The Custom House. 

July 20th. 

How gladly does the spirit leap 
forth and suddenly enlarge its sense 
of being to the full extent of the 
broad blue, sunny deep ! A greeting 
and a homage to the sea ! I descend 
over its margin and dip my hand into 
the wave that meets me, and bathe 
my brow. That far-resounding roar 
is Ocean's voice of welcome. His 
salt breath brings a blessing along 
with it. 

— Footprints on the Seashore. 

July 2 1st. 

The blackbirds, three species of 
w^hich consort together, are the noisi- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 181 

est of all our feathered citizens. 
Great companies of them — more than 
the famous " four-and-twenty " whom 
Mother Goose has immortalized — 
congregate in contiguous tree tops, 
and vociferate with all the clamor and 
confusion of a turbulent political 
meeting. Politics, certainly, must be 
the occasion of such tumultuous de- 
bates; but still — unlike all other poli- 
ticians — they instill melody into their 
individual utterances, and produce 
harmony as a general effect. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



July 2 2d. 

The morning light, however, soon 
stole into the aperture at the foot of 
the bed, betwixt those faded curtains. 
Finding the new guest there — with a 



182 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

bloom on her cheeks like the morn- 
ing's own, and a gentle stir of depart- 
ing slumber in her limbs, as when an 
early breeze moves the foliage — the 
dawn kissed her brow. It was the 
caress which a dewy maiden — such 
as the Dawn is, immortally — gives to 
her sleeping sister partly from the 
impulse of irresistible fondness and 
partly as a pretty hint that It Is time 
now to unclose her eyes. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

July 2^d. 

And now farewell, old friend! 
Little do you suspect that a student 
of human life has made your char- 
acter the theme of more than one sol- 
itary and thoughtful hour. Many 
would say, that you have hardly In- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 183 

divlduality enough to be the object 
of your own self-love. How, then, 
can a stranger's eye detect anything 
In your mind and heart, to study 
and to wonder at? Yet could I read 
but a tithe of what is written there, 
It would be a volume of deeper and 
more comprehensive Import than all 
that the wisest mortals have given to 
the world; for the soundless depths 
of the human soul, and of eternity, 
have an opening through your breast. 
God be praised, were it only for your 
sake, that the present shapes of human 
existence are not cast in Iron, nor hewn 
In everlasting adamant, but molded 
of the vapors that vanish away while 
the essence flits upward to the infinite. 
— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



184 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 



July 2/J.th. 

How Invariably, throughout all the 
forms of life, do we find these inter- 
mingled memorials of death! On 
the soil of thought, and in the garden 
of the heart, as well as in the sensual 
world, lie withered leaves; the ideas 
and feelings that we have done with. 
There is no wind strong enough to 
sweep them away; infinite space will 
not garner them from our sight. 
What mean they? Why may we not 
be permitted to live and enjoy, as if 
this were the first life, and our own 
the primal enjoyment, instead of 
treading always on these dry bones 
and moldering relics, from the aged 
accumulation of which springs all that 
now appears so young and new? 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 185 

July 2^th. 

Put on a bright face for your cus- 
tomers, and smile pleasantly as you 
hand them what they ask for. A 
stale article, if you dip it in a good, 
warm, sunny smile, will go off better 
than a fresh one that you've scowled 
upon. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



July 26th. 

It is dawn. The east puts on its 
immemorial blush, although no human 
eye is gazing at it; for all the phe- 
nomena of the natural world renew 
themselves, in spite of the solitude 
that now broods around the globe. 
There is still beauty of earth, sea, and 
sky, for beauty's sake. But soon 



186 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

there are to be spectators. Just when 
the earliest sunshine gilds earth's 
mountain tops, two beings have come 
into life, not in such an Eden as 
bloomed to welcome our first parents, 
but in the heart of a modern city. 
They find themselves in existence, 
and gazing into one another's eyes. 
Their emotion is not astonishment; 
nor do they perplex themselves with 
efforts to discover what, and whence, 
and why they are. Each is satisfied 
to be, because the other exists likewise; 
and their first consciousness is of calm 
and mutual enjoyment, which seems 
not to have been the birth of that 
very moment, but prolonged from a 
past eternity. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 187 

July 2yth. 

Externally, the jollity of aged men 
has much In common with the mirth 
of children; the intellect, any more 
than a deep sense of humor, has little 
to do with the matter; it is, with both, 
a gleam that plays upon the surface, 
and imparts a sunny and cheery as- 
pect alike to the green branch, and 
gray, moldering trunk. In one case, 
however, it is real sunshine; in the 
other, it more resembles the phos- 
phorescent glow of decaying wood. 
— The Custom House, 



July 28th, 

Let not the reader argue from any 
of these evidences of Iniquity that the 
times of the Puritans were more vie- 



188 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

ious than our own, when as we pass 
along the very street of this sketch 
we discern no badge of Infamy on 
man or woman. It was the policy of 
our ancestors to search out even the 
most secret sins and expose them to 
shame, without fear or favor. In the 
broadest light of the noonday sun. 
Were such the custom now, perchance 
we might find materials for a no less 
piquant sketch than the above. 

— Endicott arid the Red Cross. 

July 2gth. 

We dwell In an old moss-covered 
mansion, and tread In the worn foot- 
prints of the past, and have a gray 
clergyman's ghost for our dally and 
nightly Inmate; yet all these outward 
circumstances are made less than vis- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 189 

lonary, by the renewing power of the 
spirit. Should the spirit ever lose 
this power — should the withered 
leaves, and the rotten branches, and 
the moss-covered house, and the ghost 
of the gray past, ever become its reali- 
ties, and the verdure and the fresh- 
ness merely its faint dream — then let 
it pray to be released from earth. It 
will need the air of Heaven to revive 
its pristine energies. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

July ^oth. 

I took it in good part, at the hands 
of Providence, that I was thrown into 
a position so little akin to my past 
habits; and set myself seriously to 
gather from It whatever profit was to 
be had. After my fellowship of toil 



190 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

and impracticable schemes with the 
dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; af- 
ter Hving for three years within the 
subtle Influence of an intellect like 
Emerson's; after those wild, free days 
on the Assabeth, indulging fantastic 
speculations, beside our fire of fallen 
boughs, with Ellery Channing; after 
talking with Thoreau about pine trees 
and Indian relics, in his hermitage at 
Walden; after growing fastidious by 
sympathy with the classic refinement 
of Hilliard's culture; after becoming 
imbued with poetic sentiment at Long- 
fellow's hearthstone; it was time, at 
length, that I should exercise other 
faculties of my nature, and nourish 
myself with food for which I had 
hitherto had little appetite. 

- — The Custom House. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 191 

July 31 St. 

Each moment wins some portion of 
the earth from death to life; a sudden 
gleam of verdure brightens along the 
sunny slope of a bank, which, an in- 
stant ago, was brown and bare. You 
look again, and behold an apparition 
of green grass ! 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



AUGUST 



August 1st. 

It Is an old theme of satire, the 
falsehood and vanity of monumental 
eulogies; but when affection and sor- 
row grave the letters with their own 
painful labor, then we may be sure 
that they copy from the record on 
their hearts. 

— Chippings With a Chisel. 

August 2d, 

As a general rule, Providence sel- 
dom vouchsafes to mortals any more 
than just that degree of encourage- 
ment which suffices to keep them at 
a reasonably full exertion of their 
powers. 

— The House of the Seven Gables, 



196 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

August jd. 

So long as we love life for itself, 
we seldom dread the losing It. When 
we desire life for the attainment of 
an object, we recognize the frailty of 
Its texture. But, side by side with 
this sense of Insecurity, there Is a vital 
faith In our Invulnerability to the 
shaft of death, while engaged In any 
task that seems assigned by Provi- 
dence as our proper thing to do, and 
which the world would have cause to 
mourn for, should we leave It unac- 
complished. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse, 

August 4th. 

Oh, how heavily passes the time 
while an adventurous youth Is yearn- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 197 

Ing to do his part in life and to gather 
in the harvest of his renown 1 How 
hard a lesson it is to wait! Our life 
is brief, and how much of it is spent 
in teaching us only this ! 

— A ffonder Book. 



August ^th. 

Nothing is more unaccountable 
than the spell that often lurks in a 
spoken word. A thought may be 
present to the mind, so distinctly that 
no utterance could make it more so; 
and two minds may be conscious of the 
same thought, in which one or both 
take the profoundest interest; but as 
long as it remains unspoken, their 
familiar talk flows quietly over the 
hidden idea, as a rivulet may sparkle 
and dimple over, something sunken in 



198 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

its bed. But, speak the word, and it 
is like bringing up a drowned body out 
of the deepest pool in the rivulet, 
which has been aware of the horrible 
secret all along, in spite of its smiling 
surface. 

—The Marble Faun. 



August 6th 

I doubt greatly- — or, rather I do 
not doubt at all — whether any public 
functionary of the United States, 
either in the civil or military line, has 
ever had such a patriarchal body of 
veterans under his orders as myself. 
The whereabouts of the Oldest In- 
habitant was at once settled when I 
looked at them. For upwards of 
twenty years before this epoch, the in- 
dependent position of the collector 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 199 

had kept the Salem Custom House 
out of the whirlpool of political vicis- 
situde, which makes the tenure of 
office generally so fragile. A soldier 
— New England's most distinguished 
soldier — he stood firmly on the pedes- 
tal of his gallant services. 

— The Custom House. 



August yth. 

O glorious Art! Thou art the 
Image of the Creator's own. The In- 
numerable forms that wander In noth- 
ingness start Into being at thy beck. 
The dead live again. Thou recallest 
them to their old scenes, and givest 
their gray shadows the luster of a bet- 
ter life, at once earthly and Immortal. 
Thou snatchest back the fleeting mo- 
ments of History. With thee there 



200 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FRO 31 

is no Past; for, at thy touch, all that 
Is great becomes forever present; and 
illustrious men live through long ages, 
in the visible performance of the very 
deeds which made them what they are. 
— Twice Told Tales. 



August 8th. 

That cold tendency, between in- 
stinct and Intellect, which made me 
pry with a speculative Interest Into 
people's passions and impulses, ap- 
peared to have gone far toward un- 
humanizing my heart. 

But a man cannot always decide for 
himself whether his own heart is cold 
or warm. 

— The Blithedale Romance. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 201 

August gth. 

The trees, In our orchard and else- 
where, are as yet naked, but already 
appear full of life and vegetable 
blood. It seems as If, by one magic 
touch, they might Instantaneously 
burst Into full foliage, and that the 
wind, which now sighs through their 
naked branches, might make sudden 
music amid Innumerable leaves. 

— Young Good?nan Brown, 

August 1 0th. 

If there be a faculty which I pos- 
sess more perfectly than most men. It 
Is that of throwing myself mentally 
Into situations foreign to my own and 
detecting with a cheerful eye the de- 
sirable circumstances of each. 

— The Seven Vagabonds. 



202 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

August Ilth. 

These names of gentleman and lady 
had a meaning In the past history of 
the world, and conferred privileges, 
desirable or otherwise, on those en- 
titled to bear them. In the present 
— and still more in the future condi- 
tion of society — they imply, not privi- 
lege, but restriction. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

August I2th. 

We, who are born into the world's 
artificial system, can never adequately 
know how little in our present state 
and circumstances Is natural, and how 
much is merely the Interpolation of 
the perverted mind and heart of man. 
Art has become a second and stronger 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 203 

Nature; she is a stepmother, whose 
crafty tenderness has taught us to 
despise the bountiful and wholesome 
ministrations of our true parent. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 



August I^th. 

It contributes greatly toward a 
man's moral and intellectual health, 
to be brought into habits of com- 
panionship with individuals unlike 
himself, who care little for his pur- 
suits, and whose sphere and abilities 
he must go out of himself to appre- 
ciate. The accidents of my life have 
often afforded me this advantage, but 
never with more fullness and variety 
than during my continuance in office. 
— The Custom House. 



204 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

August 14th. 

Some tracts, In a happy exposure — 
as, for instance, yonder southwestern 
slope of an orchard, in front of that 
old red farm house, beyond the river 
— such patches of land already wear 
a beautiful and tender green, to which 
no future luxuriance can add a 
charm. It looks unreal — a prophecy 
— a hope — a transitory effect of some 
peculiar light, which will vanish with 
the slightest motion of the eye. But 
beauty Is never a delusion; not these 
verdant tracts, but the dark and bar- 
ren landscape, all around them, Is a 
shadow and a dream. 

— Young Goodman Brown, 

August l^th. 

If ever you should doubt that man 
is capable of disinterested zeal for 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 205 

his brother's good, then remember 
how the apostle Eliot toiled. And if 
you should feel your own self-interest 
pressing upon your heart too closely, 
then think of Eliot's Indian Bible. It 
is good for the world that such a man 
has lived and left this emblem of his 
life. 

— Grandfather s Chair, 



August 1 6th. 

A simple and joyous character can 
find no place for itself among the 
sage and somber figures that would 
put his unsophisticated cheerfulness 
to shame. The entire system of 
man's affairs, as at present estab- 
lished, is built up purposely to ex- 
clude the careless and happy soul. 
The very children would upbraid the 



206 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

wretched individual who should en- 
deavor to take life and the world as — 
what we might naturally suppose 
them meant for — a place and oppor- 
tunity for enjoyment. 

— The Marble Faun. 

August lyth. 

It is really impossible to hide any- 
thing in this world, to say nothing of 
the next. All that we ought to ask, 
therefore, is, that the witnesses of our 
conduct, and the speculators on our 
motives, should be capable of taking 
the highest view which the circum- 
stances of the case may admit. So 
much being secured, I, for one, would 
be most happy in feeling myself fol- 
lowed everywhere by an indefatig- 
able human sympathy. 

— The Blithedale Romance. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 207 



August l8th. 

O potent Art ! as thou bringest the 
faintly revealed Past to stand In that 
narrow strip of sunlight, which we 
call Now, canst thou summon the 
shrouded Future to meet her there ? 
— Twice Told Tales. 



August igth. 

It Is a truth (and It would be a 
very sad one but for the higher hopes 
which It suggests) that no great mis- 
take, whether acted or endured. In our 
mortal sphere. Is ever really set right. 
Time, the continual vicissitude of 
circumstances, and the Invariable In- 
opportunity of death, render It Im- 
possible. If, after long lapse of 



208 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

years, the right seems to be In our 
power, we find no niche to set It In. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 

August 20th. 

*' Oh, you are ungrateful to our 
Mother Earth! " rejoined I. " Come 
what may, I never will forget her! 
Neither will It satisfy me to have her 
exist merely In Idea. I want her 
great, round, solid self to endure In- 
terminably, and still to be peopled 
with the kindly race of man, whom I 
uphold to be much better than he 
thinks himself. Nevertheless, I con- 
fide the whole matter to Providence 
and shall endeavor so to live, that the 
world may come to an end at any 
moment, without leaving me at a loss 
to find foothold somewhere else." 
— Young Goodman Brown, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 209 

August 2 1st. 

While we live on earth, 'tis true, 
we must needs carry our skeletons 
about with us; but, for Heaven's sake, 
do not let us burden our spirits with 
them, in our feeble efforts to soar 
upward! Believe me, it will change 
the whole aspect of death, if you can 
once disconnect it, in your idea, with 
that corruption from which it disen- 
gages our higher part. 

— The Marble Faun. 



August 22d. 

The idea of Death is in them, or 
not far off. But were they to choose 
a symbol for him, it would be a But- 
terfly soaring upward, or the bright 
Angel beckoning them aloft, or the 



210 BEAUTIFUL THOU&HTS FROM 

Child asleep with soft dreams visible 
through her transparent purity. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

August 2^d. 

Sleeping or waking, we hear not the 
fairy footsteps of the strange things 
that almost happen. Does It not 
argue a superintending Providence, 
that, while viewless and unexpected 
events thrust themselves continually 
athwart our path, there should still 
be regularity enough, in mortal life, 
to render foresight even partially 
available ? 

— Twice Told Tales, 

August 2/j.th. 

Next to the lightest heart, the 
heaviest is apt to be most playful. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 211 



August 2^th. 

The public is despotic in its tem- 
per; it is capable of cienying com- 
mon justice, when too strenuously 
demanded as a right; but quite as 
frequently it awards more than jus- 
tice, when the appeal is made, as 
despots love to have it made, en- 
tirely to its generosity. 

— The Scarlet Letter, 



August 26th. 

Fixing our attention on such out- 
side shows of similiarity or difference, 
we lose sight of those realities by 
which nature, fortune, fate, or Provi- 
dence, has constituted for every man 
a brotherhood, wherein it is one great 
office of human wisdom to classify 



212 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

him. When the mind has once ac- 
customed itself to a proper arrange- 
ment of the Procession of Life, or a 
true classification of society, even 
though merely speculative, there is 
thenceforth a satisfaction which 
pretty well suffices for itself, without 
the aid of any actual reformation in 
the order of march. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



August 2'jth. 

There was one thing that much 
aided me in renewing and recreating 
the stalwart soldier of the Niagara 
frontier — the man of true and simple 
energy. It was the recollection of 
those memorable words of his, " I'll 
try. Sir! " spoken on the very verge 
of a desperate and heroic enterprise, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 213 

and breathing the soul and spirit of 
New England hardihood, compre- 
hending all perils, and encountering 
all. If, in our country, valor were 
rewarded by heraldic honor, this 
phrase — which it seems so easy to 
speak, but which only he, with such a 
task of danger and glory before him, 
has ever spoken — would be the best 
and fittest of all mottoes for the Gen- 
eral's shield of arms. 

— The Custom House. 



August 28th, 

Still, there will be a connection 
with the long past — a reference to 
forgotten events and personages, and 
to manners, feelings, and opinions, al- 
most or wholly obsolete — which, if 
adequately translated to the reader. 



214 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

would serve to Illustrate how much 
of old material goes to make up the 
freshest novelty of human life. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

August 2gth, 

What a pretty satire on war and 
military glory might be written In the 
form of a child's story by describing 
the snowball fights of two rival 
schools, the alternate defeats and vic- 
tories of each, and the final triumph 
of one party, or perhaps of neither! 
What pitched battles worthy to be 
chanted In Homeric strains! What 
storming of fortresses built all of 
massive snow blocks! What feats 
of Individual prowess and embodied 
on sets of martial enthusiasm ! And 
when some well-contested and decisive 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 215 

victory had put a period to the war, 
both armies should unite to build a 
lofty monument of snow upon the 
battlefield and crown It with the vic- 
tor's statue hewn of the same frozen 
marble. In a few days or weeks 
thereafter the passer-by would- ob- 
serve a shapeless mound upon the 
level common, and, unmindful of the 
famous victory, would ask: "How 
came It there? Who reared It? 
And what means It?" The shat- 
tered pedestal of many a battle monu- 
ment has provoked these questions 
when none could answer. 

—Snowflakes, 

August ^oth. 

The moss-grown wUlow-tree, which 
for forty years past has overshad- 
owed these western windows, will be 



216 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

among the first to put on Its green 
attire. There are some objections to 
the willow ; it is not a dry and cleanly 
tree, and Impresses the beholder with 
an association of slimlness. No trees, 
I think, are perfectly agreeable as 
companions, unless they have glossy 
leaves, dry bark, and a firm and hard 
texture of trunk and branches. But 
the willow is almost the earliest to 
gladden us with the promise and 
reality of beauty, in its graceful and 
delicate foliage, and the last to scat- 
ter Its yellow yet scarcely withered 
leaves upon the ground. All through 
the winter, too. Its yellow twigs give 
it a sunny aspect, which Is not without 
a cheering Influence, even in the gray- 
est and gloomiest day. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 217 

August 31st, 

Nature thrusts some of us Into the 
world miserably incomplete on the 
emotional side, with hardly any sen- 
sibilities except what pertain to us as 
animals. No passion, save of the 
senses; no holy tenderness, nor the 
delicacy that results from this. Ex- 
ternally they bear a close resemblance 
to other men, and have perhaps all 
save the finest grace; but when a 
woman wrecks herself on such a be- 
ing, she ultimately finds that the real 
womanhood within her has no cor- 
responding part in him. Her deep- 
est voice lacks a response; the deeper 
her cry, the more dead his silence. 
The fault may be none of his; he can- 
not give her what never lived within 
his soul. But the wretchedness on 



218 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

her side, and the moral deterioration 
attendant on a false and shallow life, 
without strength enough to keep it- 
self sweet, are among the most piti- 
able wrongs that mortals suffer. 

— The Blithedale Romance. 



SEPTEMBER 



September ist. 

Doubtless, however, either of these 
stern and black-browed Puritans 
would have thought It quite a suffi- 
cient retribution for his sins, that, af- 
ter so long a lapse of years, the old 
trunk of the family tree, with so 
much venerable moss upon It, should 
have borne as Its topmost bough, an 
idler hke myself. No aim, that I 
have ever cherished, would they rec- 
ognize as laudable; no success of mine 
— If my life, beyond Its domestic 
scope, had ever been brightened by 
success — would they deem otherwise 
than worthless. If not positively dis- 
graceful. "What Is he?" murmurs 
one gray shadow of my forefathers to 



222 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

the Other. *' A writer of story books ! 
What kind of a business In life — 
what mode of glorifying God, or be- 
ing serviceable to mankind In his day 
and generation — may that be ? Why, 
the degenerate fellow might as well 
have been a fiddler! " Such are the 
compliments bandied between my 
great-grandslres and myself, across 
the gulf of time! And yet, let them 
scorn me as they will, strong traits of 
their nature have intertwined them- 
selves with mine. 

— The Custom House. 



September 2d. 

Two hundred years ago, and more, 
the old world and its inhabitants be- 
came mutually weary of each other. 
Men voyaged by thousands to the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 223 

West; some to barter glass beadsv 
and such like jewels, for the furs of 
the Indian hunter; some to conquer 
virgin empires, and one stern band to 
pray. 

— Twice Told Tales. 

September ^d. 

If people have but life enough in 
them to bear it, there is nothing that 
so raises the spirits and makes the 
blood ripple and dance so nimbly, 
like a brook down the slope of a hill, 
as a bright, hard frost. 

—A IVonder Book. 

September ^th. 

If anywise interested in art, a man 
must be difficult to please who can- 
not find fit companionship among a 



224 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

crowd of persons, whose ideas and 
pursuits all tend toward the general 
purpose of enlarging the world's 
stock of beautiful productions. 

One of the chief causes that make 
Rome the favorite residence of 
artists — their ideal home which they 
sigh for in advance, and are so loath 
to migrate from, after once breath- 
ing its enchanted air — is, doubtless, 
that they there find themselves in 
force, and are numerous enough to 
create a congenial atmosphere. In 
every other clime they are isolated 
strangers; in this land of art, they are 
free citizens. 

— The Marble Faun. 

September ^th. 
Happier my lot, who will straight- 
way hie me to my familiar room and 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 225 

toast myself comfortably before the 
fire, musing and fitfully dozing and 
fancying a strangeness In such sights 
as all may see. But first let me gaze 
at this solitary figure who comes 
hitherward with a tin lantern which 
throws the circular pattern of Its 
punched holes on the ground about 
hlm~. He passes fearlessly Into the 
unknown gloom, whither I will not 
follow him. 

This figure shall supply me with a 
moral wherewith, for lack of a more 
appropriate one, I may wind up my 
sketch. He fears not to tread the 
dreary path before him, because his 
lantern, which was kindled at the fire- 
side of his home, will light him back 
to that same fireside again. And 
thus we, night-wanderers through a 
stormy and dismal world. If we bear 



226 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

the lamp of Faith enkindled at a 
celestial fire, It will surely lead us 
home to that Heaven whence Its radi- 
ance was borrowed. 

— Night Sketches. 

September 6th, 

The present Spring comes onward 
with fleeter footsteps, because Win- 
ter lingered so unconscionably long, 
that with her best diligence she can 
hardly retrieve half the allotted pe- 
riod of her reign. It is but a fort- 
night since I stood on the brink of 
our swollen river, and beheld the ac- 
cumulated Ice of four frozen months 
go down the stream. Except in 
streaks here and there upon the hill- 
sides, the whole visible universe was 
then covered with deep snow, the 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 227 

nethermost layer of which had been 
deposited by an early December 
storm. It was a sight to make the 
beholder torpid, in the impossibility 
of imagining how this vast white nap- 
kin was to be removed from the face 
of the corpse-like world, in less time 
than had been required to spread it 
there. But who can estimate the 
power of gentle influences, whether 
amid material desolation, or the 
moral winter of man's heart? 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



September yth. 

Hence, too, might be drawn a 
weighty lesson from the little-re- 
garded truth, that the act of the pass- 
ing generation is the germ which may 
and must produce good or evil fruit 



228 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

in a far-distant time; that, together 
with the seed of the merely temporary 
crop, which mortals term expediency, 
they inevitably sow the acorns of a 
more enduring growth, which may 
darkly overshadow their posterity. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 

September 8th. 

The snow has vanished as if by 
magic; whatever heaps may be hid- 
den in the woods and deep gorges of 
the hills, only two solitary specks re- 
main in the landscape; and those I 
shall almost regret to miss, when, to- 
morrow, I look for them in vain. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

September gth. 

Literature, its exertions and ob- 
jects, were now of little moment in 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 229 

my regard. I cared not, at this pe- 
riod, for books; they were apart from 
me. Nature — except It were human 
nature — the nature that Is developed 
In earth and sky, was. In one sense, 
hidden from me; and all the Imagina- 
tive delight, wherewith It had been 
spiritualized, passed away out of my 
mind. A gift, a faculty. If It had 
not departed, was suspended and In- 
animate within me. There would 
have been something sad, unutter- 
ably dreary, In all this, had I not 
been conscious that It lay at my own 
option to recall whatever was valu- 
able In the past. It might be true, 
Indeed, that this was a life that 
could not with Impunity be lived too 
long; else. It might have made me per- 
manently other than I had been, with- 
out transforming me into any shape 



230 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

which It would be worth my while to 
take. But I never considered it as 
other than a transitory life. There 
was always a prophetic instinct, a low 
whisper in my ear, that, within no 
long period, and whenever a new 
change of custom should be essential 
to my good, a change would come. 
— The Custom House. 



September loth. 

Bewitching to my fancy are all 
those nooks and crannies, where 
Nature, like a stray partridge, hides 
her head among the long-established 
haunts of men ! It is likewise to be 
remarked, as a general rule, that there 
Is far more of the picturesque, more 
truth to native and characteristic tend- 
encies, and vastly greater suggestive- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 231 

ness, in the back view of a residence, 
whether In town or country, than In 
its front. The latter Is always arti- 
ficial; It Is meant for the world's eye, 
and is therefore a veil and a conceal- 
ment. Realities keep In the rear, 
and put forward an advance guard 
of show and humbug. The posterior 
aspect of any old farm house, behind 
which a railroad has unexpectedly 
been opened, is so different from that 
looking upon the immemorial high- 
way, that the spectator gets new ideas 
of, rural life and individuality In the 
puff or two of steam-breath which 
shoots him past the premises. In a 
city, the distinction between what Is 
offered to the public and what Is kept 
for the family is certainly not less 
striking. 

— The Blithedale Romance, 



232 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

September nth. 

This long connection of a family 
with one spot, as its place of birth 
and burial, creates a kindred between 
the human being and the locality, 
quite independent of any charm in the 
scenery or moral circumstances that 
surround him. It is not love, but 
instinct. The new inhabitant — who 
came himself from a foreign land, or 
whose father or grandfather came — 
has little claim to be called a Salemite; 
he has no conception of the oyster- 
like tenacity with which an old settler, 
over whom his third century is creep- 
ing, clings to the spot where his 
successive generations have been im- 
bedded. 

— The Custom Home, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 233 



September I2th. 

A sculptor, Indeed, to meet the 
demands which our preconceptions 
make upon him, should be even more 
indispensably a poet than those who 
deal in measured verse and rhyme. 
His material, or instrument, which 
serves him in the stead of shifting 
and transitory language, is a pure, 
white, undecaying substance. It in- 
sures immortality to whatever is 
wrought in it, and therefore makes 
it a religious obligation to commit no 
idea to its mighty guardianship, save 
such as may repay the marble for its 
faithful care, its incorruptible fidelity, 
by warming it with an ethereal life. 
—The Marble Faun. 



234 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 



September i^th. 

There is no Impiety in believing 
that, when his long life was over, the 
apostle of the Indians was welcomed 
to the celestial abodes by the prophets 
of ancient days and by those earliest 
apostles and evangelists who had 
drawn their inspiration from the im- 
mediate presence of the Saviour. 
They first had preached truth and 
salvation to the world. And Eliot, 
separated from them by many cen- 
turies, yet full of the same spirit, had 
borne the like message to the New 
World of the West. Since the first 
days of Christianity there has been 
no man more worthy to be numbered 
in the brotherhood of the apostles 
than Eliot. 

— Grandfather s Chair. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 235 



September 14th. 

Do we not all spring from an evil 
root ? Are we not all in darkness till 
the light doth shine upon us? 

— Twice Told Tales. 



September i^th. 

Yet, the longer I reflect, the less 
am I satisfied with the idea of form- 
ing a separate class of mankind on the 
basis of high Intellectual power. At 
best, it is but a higher development 
of Innate gifts common to all. Per- 
haps, moreover, he, whose genius 
appears deepest and truest, excels his 
fellows In nothing save the knack of 
expression; he throws out, occasion- 
ally, a lucky hint at truths of which 
every human soul is profoundly, 



236 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

though unutterably conscious. There- 
fore, though we suffer the brother- 
hood of intellect to march onward 
together, it may be doubted whether 
their peculiar relation will not begin 
to vanish as soon as the procession 
shall have passed beyond the circle of 
this present world. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

September i6th. 

Never before, methinks, has Spring 
pressed so closely on the footsteps of 
retreating Winter. Along the road- 
side, the green blades of grass have 
sprouted on the very edge of the 
snowdrifts. The pastures and mow- 
ing fields have not yet assumed a gen- 
eral aspect of verdure; but neither 
have they the cheerless brown tint 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 237 

which they wear In latter autumn, 
when vegetation has entirely ceased; 
there Is now a faint shadow of life, 
gradually brightening Into the warm 
reality. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

September ijth. 

Thus gradually, by silent and 
stealthy Influences, are great changes 
wrought. These little snow particles 
which the storm-spirit flings by hand- 
fuls through the air will bury the 
great Earth under their accumulated 
mass, nor permit her to behold her 
sister Sky again for dreary months. 
We likewise shall lose sight of 
our mother's familiar visage, and 
must content ourselves with looking 
Heavenward the oftener. 

— Snow flakes. 



238 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 



September i8th. 

When a writer calls his work a 
romance, it need hardly be observed 
that he wishes to claim a certain lati- 
tude, both as to Its fashion and ma- 
terial, which he would not have felt 
himself entitled to assume, had he 
professed to be writing a novel. The 
latter form of composition is pre- 
sumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, 
not merely to the possible, but to the 
probable and ordinary course of man's 
experience. The former — while, as 
a work of art, it must rigidly subject 
itself to laws, and while it sins un- 
pardonably so far as It may swerve 
aside from the truth of the human 
heart — has fairly a right to present 
that truth under circumstances, to a 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 239 

great extent, of the writer's own 
choosing or creation. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

September igth. 

But It must be otherwise with our 
successors. On the most favorable 
supposition, they will be acquainted 
with the fireside In no better shape 
than that of the sullen stove ; and more 
probably, they will have grown up 
amid furnace heat. In houses which 
might be fancied to have their foun- 
dation over the Infernal pit, whence 
sulphurous streams and unbreathable 
exhalations ascend through the aper- 
tures of the floor. There will be 
nothing to attract these poor children 
to one center. They will never be- 
hold one another through that pecu- 



240 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

liar medium of vision — the ruddy 
gleam of blazing wood or bituminous 
coal — which gives the human spirit 
so deep an insight into its fellows, and 
melts all humanity Into one cordial 
heart of hearts. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



September 20th. 

This sunny, shadowy, breezy, wan- 
dering life, in which he seeks for 
beauty as his treasure, and gathers 
for his winter's honey what Is but a 
passing fragrance to all other men. Is 
worth living for, come afterwards 
what may. Even If he die unrecog- 
nized, the artist has had his share of 
enjoyment and success. 

— The Marble Faun. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 241 

September 2ist. 

It was a countenance terrible from 
Its enormity of size, but disconsolate 
and weary, even as you may see the 
faces of many people nowadays who 
are compelled to sustain burdens 
above their strength. What the sky 
was to the giant, such are the cares 
of earth to those who let themselves 
be weighed down by them. And 
whenever men undertake what is be- 
yond the just measure of their abili- 
ties they encounter precisely such a 
doom as had befallen this poor giant. 
— A Wonder Book. 

September 22d. 

Not one woman In a thousand 
could move so admirably as Zenobia. 
Many women can sit gracefully; 



242 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

some can stand gracefully; and a 
few, perhaps, can assume a series 
of graceful positions. But natural 
movement is the result and expres- 
sion of the whole being, and cannot 
be well and nobly performed, unless 
responsive to something in the char- 
acter. I often used to think that 
music — light and airy, wild and pas- 
sionate, or the full harmony of stately 
marches, in accordance with her vary- 
ing mood — should have attended 
Zenobia's footsteps. 

— The BUthedale Romance. 

September 2^d. 

Nothing in the whole circle of 
human vanities takes stronger hold 
of the imagination than this affair of 
having a portrait painted. Yet why 
should it be so? The looking glass, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 243 

the polished globes of the andirons, 
the mirror-like water, and all other 
reflecting surfaces continually present 
us with portraits, or rather ghosts, of 
ourselves, which we glance at and 
straightway forget them. But we 
forget them only because they vanish. 
It is the Idea of duration — of earthly 
immortality — that gives such a mys- 
terious interest to our own portraits. 
— Twice Told Tales. 



September 2^th. 

I felt It almost as a destiny to make 
Salem my home; so that the mold of 
features and cast of character which 
had all along been familiar here — 
ever, as one representative of the race 
lay down In his grave, another assum- 
ing, as It were, his sentry-march along 



244 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

the main street — might still In my 
little day be seen and recognized In 
the old town. Nevertheless, this very 
sentiment Is an evidence that the 
connection, which has become an un- 
healthy one, should at least be sev- 
ered. Human nature will not flour- 
ish, any more than a potato. If It be 
planted and replanted, for too long 
a series of generations, In the same 
worn-out soil. 

— The Custom House. 

September 2jth. 

The sacred trust of the household- 
fire has been transmitted In unbroken 
succession from the earliest ages, and 
faithfully cherished, In spite of every 
discouragement, such as the Curfew 
law of the Norman conquerors; until. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 245 

in these evil days, physical science has 
nearly succeeded in extinguishing it. 
— Young Goodman Brown. 

September 26th. 

There is something so massive, 
stable, and almost irresistibly "impos- 
ing in the exterior presentment of 
established rank and great posses- 
sions, that their very existence seems 
to give them a right to exist; at least, 
so excellent a counterfeit of right, 
that few poor and humble men have 
moral force enough to question it, 
even in their secret minds. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

September lyth. 

The secret of the young man's 
character was a high and abstracted 
ambition. He could have borne to 



246 BEAUTIFUL TEOUQETS FROM 

live an undistinguished life, but not 
to be forgotten in the grave. Yearn- 
ing desire had been transformed to 
hope, and hope, long cherished, had 
become like certainty that, obscurely 
as he journeyed now, a glory was to 
beam on all his pathway, though not, 
perhaps, while he was treading it. 
But when posterity should gaze back 
into the gloom of what was now the 
present, they would trace the bright- 
ness of his footsteps, brightening as 
meaner glories faded, and confess 
that a gifted one had passed from his 
cradle to his tomb with none to recog- 
nize him. — The Ambitious Guest, 

September 28th. 

But, let good men push and elbow 
one another as they may, during their 
earthly march, all will be peace among 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 247 

them when the honorable array of 
their procession shall tread on heav- 
enly ground. There they will doubt- 
less find, that they have been working 
each for the other's cause, and that 
every well-delivered stroke, which, 
with an honest purpose, any mortal 
struck, even for a narrow object, was 
indeed stricken for the universal cause 
of good. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

September 2gth. 

Balmy Spring — weeks later than 
we expected, and months later than 
we longed for her — comes at last, to 
revive the moss on the roof and walls 
of our old mansion. She peeps 
brightly into my study-window, in- 
viting me to throw it open, and create 
a summer atmosphere by the intermix- 



248 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

tiire of her genial breath with the 
black and cheerless comfort of the 
stove. As the casement ascends, forth 
into infinite space fly the innumerable 
forms of thought or fancy that have 
kept me company in the retirement of 
this little chamber, during the slug- 
gish lapse of wintry weather — visions, 
gay, grotesque, and sad: pictures of 
real life, tinted with Nature's homely 
gray and russet; scenes in dreamland, 
bedizened with rainbow hues, which 
faded before they were well laid on — 
all these may vanish now, and leave 
me to mold a fresh existence out of 
sunshine. 

— Youn^ Goodman Brown. 

September 30th. 

It is the iron rule in our day to re- 
quire an object and a purpose in life. 



XATHAXIEL HAWTHORNE 249 

It makes us all parts of a complicated 
scheme of progress, which can only 
result In our arrival at a colder and 
drearier region than we were born 
In. It Insists upon everybody's add- 
ing somewhat — a mite, perhaps, but 
earned by Incessant effort — to an ac- 
cumulated pile of usefulness, of which 
the only use will be to burden our 
posterity with even heavier thoughts 
and more Inordinate labor than our 
own. No life now wanders like an 
unfettered stream; there Is a mill- 
wheel for the tiniest rivulet to turn. 
We go all wrong, by too strenuous a 
resolution to go all right. 

— The Marble Faun. 



OCTOBER 



October 1st. 

I should think it a poor and meager 
nature, that is capable of but one set 
of forms, and must convert all the 
past Into a dream merely because the 
present happens to be unlike It. Why 
should we be content with our homely 
life of a few months past, to the ex- 
clusion of all other modes? It was 
good; but there are other lives as 
good, or better. 

— The Blithedale Romance. 



October 2d. 

A wretched change, Indeed, must 
be wrought In their own hearts, ere 
they can conceive the primal decree of 



254 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

Love to have been so completely abro- 
gated, that a brother should ever want 
what his brother had. When their 
Intelligence shall have reached so far, 
Earth's new progeny will have little 
reason to exult over her old rejected 
one. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse, 



October ^d. 

It Is the unspeakable misery of a 
life so false as his, that It steals the 
pith and substance out of whatever 
realities there are around us, and 
which were meant by Heaven to be 
the spirit's joy and nutriment. To 
the untrue man, the whole universe 
Is false — It Is Impalpable — It shrinks 
to nothing within his grasp. And he 
himself, In so far as he shows himself 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 255 

in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, 
indeed, ceases to exist. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 

October ^fth. 

It is not good for man to cherish a 
solitary ambition. Unless there be 
those around him by whose example 
he may regulate himself, his thoughts, 
desires, and hopes will become extrav- 
agant, and he the semblance, perhaps 
the reality of a madman. 

— Twice Told Tales. 

October 5th. 

For, little as w^e know of our life 
to come, we may be very sure, for one 
thing, that the good we aim at will 
not be attained. People never do get 
just the good they seek. If it come at 



256 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

all, It is something else, which they 
never dreamed of, and did not partic- 
ularly want. Then, again, we may 
rest certain that our friends of to-day 
will not be our friends of a few years 
hence; but, if we keep one of them, it 
will be at the expense of the others; 
and, most probably, we shall keep 
none. To be sure, there are more to 
be had; but who cares about m.aking 
a new set of friends, even should they 
be better than those around us? 

— The Blithedale Romance. 

October 6th. 

As these busts In the block of mar- 
ble, so does our Individual fate exist 
In the limestone of time. We fancy 
that we carve It out; but Its ultimate 
shape is prior to all our action. 

— The Marble Faun. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 257 

October yth. 

When an unlnstructed multitude 
attempts to see with Its eyes, It Is ex- 
ceedingly apt to be deceived. When, 
however. It forms Its judgment, as It 
usually does, on the Intuitions of Its 
great and warm heart, the conclu- 
sions thus attained are often so pro- 
found and so unerring, as to possess 
the character of truths supernaturally 
revealed. 

— The Scarlet Letter. 

October 8th, 

When our infancy is almost forgot- 
ten, and our boyhood long departed, 
though it seems but as yesterday; 
when life settles darkly down upon 
us, and we doubt whether to call our- 



258 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

selves young any more, then It is good 
to steal away from the society of 
bearded men, and even of gentler 
woman, and spend an hour or two 
with children. 

— Twice Told Tales. 



October gth. 

The sun was now an hour or two 
beyond its noontide mark, and filled 
the great hollow of the valley with Its 
western radiance, so that it seemed to 
be brimming with mellow light, and 
to spill it over the surrounding hill- 
sides like golden wine out of a bowl. 
It was such a day that you could not 
help saying of it, " There never was 
such a day before ! " although yester- 
day was just such a day, and to-mor- 
row will be just such another. Ah, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 259 

but there are very few of them In a 
twelvemonth's circle ! It Is a re- 
markable peculiarity of these Octo- 
ber days that each of them seems to 
occupy a great deal of space, although 
the sun rises rather tardily at that 
season of the year, and goes to bed, 
as little children ought, at sober six 
o'clock, or even earlier. We cannot 
therefore call the days long, but they 
appear, somehow or other, to make up 
for their shortness by their breadth, 
and when the cool night comes we are 
conscious of having enjoyed a big 
armful of life since morning. 

— A Wonder Book. 



October loth. 

In the Spring and Summer time, all 
somber thoughts should follow the 



260 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

winter northward, with the somber 
and thoughtful crows. The old par- 
adisiacal economy of life is again in 
force; we live, not to think, nor to 
labor, but for the simple end of be- 
ing happy; nothing, for the present 
hour, is worthy of man's infinite 
capacity, save to imbibe the warm 
smile of Heaven, and sympathize 
with the reviving earth. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

October nth. 

Gloomy as it may seem, there is 
an influence productive of cheerful- 
ness and favorable to imaginative 
thought in the atmosphere of a snowy 
day. My hour of inspiration — if 
that hour ever comes — is when the 
green log hisses upon the hearth, and 



NATHAXIEL HAWTHORXE 261 

the bright flame, brighter for the 
gloom of the chamber, rustles high 
up the chimney, and the coals drop 
tinkling down among the growing 
heaps of ashes. When the casement 
rattles in the gust of the snowflakes, 
or the sleety raindrops pelt hard 
against the window panes, then I 
spread out my sheet of paper with a 
certainty that thoughts and fancies 
will gleam forth upon it like stars at 
twilight or like violets in May, per- 
haps to fade as soon. 

— Snowflakes. 

October I2th. 

A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, 
and skillfully wrought out, brighten- 
ing at every step, and crowning the 
final development of a work of fie- 



262 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

tion, may add an artistic glory, but is 
never any truer, and seldom any more 
evident, at the last page than at the 
first. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



October i^th. 

It is very true that, sometimes gaz- 
ing casually around me, out of the 
midst of my toil, I used to discern 
a richer picturesqueness in the visible 
scene of earth and sky. There was, 
at such moments, a novelty, an un- 
wonted aspect, on the face of Nature, 
as if she had been taken by surprise 
and seen at unawares, with no oppor- 
tunity to put off her real look, and 
assume the mask with which she mys- 
teriously hides herself from mortals. 
— The Blithedale Romance. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 263 

October 14th. 

What a strange Idea — what a need- 
less labor — to construct artificial 
ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin ! 
But even these sportive Imitations, 
wrought by man in emulation of what 
time has done to temples and palaces, 
are perhaps centuries old, and, begin- 
ning as Illusions, have grown to be 
venerable In sober earnest. 

— The Marble Faun. 

October i^th. 

Had our Adam and Eve become 
mortal In some European city, and 
strayed into the vastness and sub- 
limity of an old cathedral, they might 
have recognized the purpose for 
which the deep-souled founders reared 



264 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

it. Like the dim awfulness of an 
ancient forest, its very atmosphere 
would have incited them to prayer. 
Within the snug walls of a metropoli- 
tan church there can be no such in- 
fluence. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse, 



October i6th. 

His mind was in a free and happy 
state and took delight in its own 
activity, and scarcely required any 
external impulse to set it at work. 

How different is this spontaneous 
play of the intellect 'from the trained 
diligence of maturer years, when toil 
has perhaps grown easy by long 
habit, and the day's work may have 
become essential to the day's com- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 265 

fort, although the rest of the matter 
has bubbled away ! 

— A Wonder Book. 

October lyth. 

The enemies of a great and good 
man can In no other way make him so 
glorious as by giving him the crown 
of martyrdom. 

— Grandfather s Chair. 

October i8th. 

All of us, after long abode In cities, 
have felt the blood gush more joy- 
ously through our veins with the first 
breath of rural air. 

— The Marble Faun. 

October igth. 

It has been our task to uproot the 
hearth. What further reform Is left 



266 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

for our children to achieve, unless 
they overthrow the altar too? And 
by what appeal, hereafter, when the 
breath of hostile armies may mingle 
with the pure, cold breezes of our 
country, shall we attempt to rouse up 
native valor? Fight for your hearths ! 
There will be none throughout the 
land. Fight for your stoves! Not 
I, in faith. If, in such a cause, I 
strike a blow, it shall be on the In- 
vader's part; and Heaven grant that 
it may shatter the abomination all to 
pieces! 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

October 20th. 

For I am a patriarch. Here I sit 
among my descendants, in my old 
armchair and immemorial corner, 
while the firelight throws an appro- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 267 

priate glory round my venerable 
frame. Susan! My children! Some- 
thing whispers me that this happiest 
hour must be the final one, and that 
nothing remains but to bless you all 
and depart with a treasure of recol- 
lected joys to Heaven. Will you 
meet me there? Alas! your figures 
grow Indistinct, fading into pictures 
on the air, and now to fainter outlines, 
while the fire is glimmering on the 
walls of a familiar room, and shows 
the book that I flung down and the 
sheet that I left half written some 
fifty years ago. I lift my eyes to the 
looking glass, and perceive myself 
alone, unless those be the mermaid's 
features retiring into the depths of 
the mirror with a tender and melan- 
choly smile. 

—The Village Uncle. 



268 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 



October 2ist. 

In this republican country, amid the 
fluctuating waves of our social life, 
somebody Is always at the drownlng- 
polnt. The tragedy Is enacted with 
as continual a repetition as that of a 
popular drama on a holiday; and, 
nevertheless. Is felt as deeply, per- 
haps, as when an hereditary noble 
sinks below his order. More deeply; 
since, with us, rank Is the grosser 
substance of wealth and a splendid 
establishment, and has no spiritual 
existence after death of these, but 
dies hopelessly along with them. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 

October 22d. 

Religion sat down beside it, not in 
the priestly robes which decorated, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 269 

and perhaps disguised, her at the 
altar, but arrayed In a simple matron's 
garb, and uttering her lessons with 
the tenderness of a mother's voice and 
heart. The holy Hearth! If any 
earthly and material thing — or 
rather, a divine Idea, embodied In 
brick and mortar — might be sup- 
posed to possess the permanence of 
moral truth, It was this. All re- 
vered It. 

— Young Goodman Brown, 

October 2^d, 

Few secrets can escape an Investi- 
gator, who has opportunity and license 
to undertake such a quest, and skill to 
follow It up. A man burdened with 
a secret should especially avoid the 
Intimacy of his physician. If the 



270 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

latter possess native sagacity, and a 
nameless something more — let us call 
It Intuition; If he show no Intrusive 
egotism, nor disagreeably prominent 
characteristics of his own; If he have 
the power, which must be born with 
him, to bring his mind Into such 
affinity with his patient's, that this 
last shall unawares have spoken what 
he Imagines himself only to have 
thought; If such revelations be re- 
ceived without tumult, and acknowl- 
edged not so often by an uttered 
sympathy as by silence, an Inarticu- 
late breath, and here and there a 
word, to Indicate that all Is under- 
stood; if to these qualifications of a 
confidant be joined the advantages 
afforded by his recognized character 
as a physician — then, at some Inevita- 
ble moment, will the soul of the suf- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 271 

ferer be dissolved, and flow forth in 
a dark, but transparent stream, bring- 
ing all Its mysteries into the daylight. 
— The Scarlet Letter, 

October 2^th. 

Thought has always its efficacy, 
and every striking Incident Its moral. 
— Twice Told Tales. 

A forced smile is uglier than a 
frown. 

— The Marble Faun, 

October 2^th. 

But there Is a species of Intuition — 
either a spiritual He, or the subtle 
recognition of a fact — which comes 
to us In a reduced state of the cor- 
poreal system. The soul gets the 
better of the body, after wasting ill- 



272 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

ness, or when a vegetable diet may 
have mingled too much either in the 
blood. Vapors then rise up to the 
brain, and take shapes that often 
image falsehoods, but sometimes 
truth. The spheres of our compan- 
ions have, at such periods, a vastly 
greater influence upon our own than 
when robust health gives us a repel- 
lent and self-defensive energy. 

— The Blithedale Romance, 

October 26th, 

What a singular moment is the 
first one, when you have hardly be- 
gun to recollect yourself, after start- 
ing from midnight slumber ! By un- 
closing your eyes so suddenly you 
seem to have surprised the personages 
of your dream in full convocation 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 273 

round your bed, and catch one broad 
glance at them before they can flit 
into obscurity. Or, to vary the meta- 
phor, you find yourself for a single 
instant wide awake in that realm of 
illusions whither sleep has been the 
passport, and behold its ghostly in- 
habitants and wondrous scenery with 
a perception of their strangeness such 
as you never attain while the dream is 
undisturbed. 

— The Haunted Mind. 



October zjth. 

How sad is the thought that one 
of the first things which the settlers 
had to do, when they came to the 
New World, was to set apart a burial 
ground ! 

— Grandfather s Chair. 



274 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

Octgber 28th. 

The sun, meanwhile, If not already 
above the horizon, was ascending 
nearer and nearer to Its verge. A few 
clouds, floating high upward, caught 
some of the earliest light, and threw 
down Its golden gleam on the win- 
dows of all the houses In the street, 
not forgetting the House of the Seven 
Gables, which — many such sunrises 
as It had witnessed — looked cheer- 
fully at the present one. 

— The House of the Seven Gables, 



October 2Qth. 

And now for a moral to my reverie. 
Shall It be that, since fancy can create 
so bright a dream of happiness. It 
were better to dream on from youth 



-NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 275 

to age than to awake and strive doubt- 
fully for something real? Oh, the 
slight tissue of a dream can no more 
preserve us from the stern reality of 
misfortune than a robe of cobweb 
could repel the wintry blast. Be this 
the moral, then: In chaste and warm 
affections, humble wishes, and honest 
toil for some useful end, there is 
health for the mind and quiet for the 
heart, the prospect of a happy life, 
and the fairest hope of Heaven. 

— The Village Uncle. 



October ^oth. 

Men who have spent their lives in 
generous and holy contemplation for 
the human race; those who, by a cer- 
tain heavenliness of spirit, have puri- 
fied the atmosphere around them, and 



276 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

thus supplied a medium In which good 
and high things may be projected and 
performed — give to these a lofty 
place among the benefactors of man- 
kind, although no deed, such as the 
world calls deeds, may be recorded 
of them. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



October 31st. 

It could not be that the world 
should continue forever what It has 
been; a soil where Happiness Is so 
rare a flower, and Virtue so often a 
blighted fruit; a battlefield where the 
good principle, with Its shield flung 
above Its head, can hardly save itself 
amid the rush of adverse Influences. 
In the enthusiasm of such thoughts, 
I gazed through one of the pictured 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 277 

windows; and, behold! the whole ex- 
ternal world was tinged with the 
dimly glorious aspect that is peculiar 
to the Hall of Fantasy; insomuch 
that it seemed practicable, at that very 
instant, to realize some plan for the 
perfection of mankind. But, alas! 
if reformers would understand the 
sphere in which their lot is cast, they 
must cease to look through pictured 
windows. Yet they not only use this 
medium, but mistake it for the whitest 
sunshine. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



NOVEMBER 



November ist. 

Intellectual activity is incompatible 
with any large amount of bodily ex- 
ercise. The yeoman and the scholar 
— the yeoman and the man of finest 
moral culture, though not the man of 
sturdiest sense and integrity — are two 
distinct individuals, and can never be 
melted or welded into one substance. 
— The Bltthedale Romance. 



November 2d. 

And now, again, the clock of the 
Old South threw its voice of ages on 
the breeze, knolling the hourly knell 
of the past, crying out far and wide 
through the multitudinous city, and 



282 BEAUTIFUL TH0U0HT8 FROM 

filling our ears, as we sat In the dusky 
chamber, with Its reverberating depth 
of tone. In that same mansion — In 
that very chamber — what a volume 
of history had been told off Into 
hours by the same voice that was now 
trembling In the air! Many a gov- 
ernor had heard those midnight ac- 
cents and longed to exchange his 
stately cares for slumber. 

—Old Esther Dudley, 

November 5^. 

In a forest, solitude would be life; 
In the city. It Is death. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 
His joy was like that of a child 
that had gone astray from home, and 
finds him suddenly In his mother's 
arms again. 

— The Marble Faun. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 283 

November ph, 

I have sometimes doubted whether 
there was more than a single man 
among our forefathers, who realized 
that an Indian possesses a mind, and 
a heart, and an immortal soul. That 
single man was John Eliot. All the 
rest of the early settlers seemed to 
think that the Indians were an inferior 
race of beings, whom the Creator had 
merely allowed to keep possession of 
this beautiful country till the white 
men should be in want of it. 

— Grandfather's Chair, 

November §th. 

Now, I need hardly remind such 
wise little people as you are that in 
the old, old times, when King Midas 



284 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

was alive, a great many things came 
to pass which we should consider 
wonderful If they were to happen in 
our own day and country. And, on 
the other hand, a great many things 
take place nowadays which seem not 
only wonderful to us, but at which the 
people of old times would have stared 
their eyes out. On the whole, I re- 
gard our own times as the stranger 
of the two. 

— A Wonder Book. 

November 6th. 

Thus early had that one guest — the 
only guest who is certain, at one time 
or another, to find his way Into every 
human dwelling — thus early had 
Death stepped across the threshold 
of the House of the Seven Gables. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 285 

November yth. 

It Is a good lesson — though it may 
often be a hard one — for a man who 
has dreamed of Hterary fame, and of 
making for himself a rank among the 
world's dignitaries by such means, to 
step aside out of the narrow circle In 
which his claims are recognized, and 
to find how utterly devoid of signifi- 
cance, beyond that circle, Is all that 
he achieves, and all he alms at. I 
know not that I especially needed the 
lesson, either In the way of warning 
or rebuke; but, at any rate, I learned 
it thoroughly; nor it gives me pleas- 
ure to reflect, did the truth, as It came 
hom.e to my perception, ever cost me 
a pang or require to be thrown off in a 
sigh. 

— The Custom House. 



286 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

November 8th. 

It Is my belief that social Inter- 
course cannot long continue what It 
has been, now that we have subtracted 
from It so Important and vivifying an 
element as fire-light. The effects will 
be more perceptible on our children, 
and the generations that shall succeed 
them, than on ourselves, the mechan- 
ism of whose life may remain un- 
changed, though Its spirit be far other 
than It was. 

— Young Goodman Brown, 

November gth. 

We have called the Evil; now let 
us call the Good. The trumpet's 
brazen throat should pour Heavenly 
music over the earth, and the her- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 287 

aid's voice go forth with the sweet- 
ness of an angel's accents, as If to 
summon each upright man to his re- 
ward. But how Is this? Does none 
answer to the call? Not one: for 
the just, the pure, the true, and all 
who might most worthily obey It, 
shrink sadly back, as most conscious 
of error and Imperfection. Then let 
the summons be to those whose per- 
vading principle Is Love. This classi- 
fication will embrace all the truly 
good, and none In whose souls there 
exists not something that may expand 
Itself Into a heaven, both of well- 
doing and felicity. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

November loth. 

Nothing so much depresses me In 
my view of mortal affairs as to see 



288 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

high energies wasted and human life 
and happiness thrown away for ends 
that appear oftentimes unwise, and 
still oftener remain unaccomplished. 
But the wisest people and the best 
keep a steadfast faith that the prog- 
ress of mankind is onward and up- 
ward, and that the toil and anguish 
of the path serve to wear away the 
imperfections of the immortal pil- 
grim, and will be felt no more when 
they have done their office. 

— The Sister-Years. 



November nth. 

In classic times, the exhortation to 
fight " pro aris et focis " — for the 
altars and the hearths— was consid- 
ered the strongest appeal that could 
be made to patriotism. And it 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 289 

seemed an immortal utterance ; for all 
subsequent ages and people have ac- 
knowledged Its force, and responded 
to It with the full portion of manhood 
that Nature had assigned to each. 
Wisely were the Altar and the Hearth 
conjoined in one mighty sentence! 
For the hearth, too, had its kindred 
sanctity. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

November I2th. 

" Alas for you, then, my poor sis- 
ter ! *' said the Old Year, sighing, 
as she uplifted her burden. " We 
grandchildren of Time are born to 
trouble. Happiness, they say, dwells 
in the mansions of eternity, but we 
can only lead mortals thither step by 
step with reluctant murmurlngs, and 



290 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

ourselves must perish on the thresh- 
old." 

— The Sister Years. 

November ijth. 

It Is our nature to desire a monu- 
ment, be It slate or marble, or a pillar 
of granite, or a glorious memory In 
the universal heart of man. 

— The Ambitious Guest. 

November 14th. 

Moonlight, In a familiar room, 
falling so white upon the carpet, and 
showing all Its figures so distinctly — 
making every object so minutely vis- 
ible, yet so unlike a morning of noon- 
tide visibility — Is a medium the most 
suitable for a romance writer to get 
acquainted with his Illusive guests. 



XATHAyiEL HAWTHORXE 291 

There Is the httle domestic scenery of 
the well-known apartment; the chairs, 
with each Its separate Individuality; 
the center-table, sustaining a work- 
basket, a volume or two, and an ex- 
tinguished lamp; the sofa; the book- 
case; the picture on the wall — all 
these details, so completely seen, are 
so spiritualized by the unusual light, 
that they seem to lose their actual 
substance, and become things of In- 
tellect. 

— The Custom House. 



November i^th. 

But there Is no one thing which men 
so rarely do, whatever the provoca- 
tion or Inducement, as to bequeath 
patrimonial property away from their 
own blood. They may love other 



292 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

Individuals far better than their rela- 
tives — they may even cherish dislike, 
or positive hatred, to the latter; but 
yet, in view of death, the strong preju- 
dice of propinquity revives, and im- 
pels the testator to send down his 
estate in the line marked out by cus- 
tom so immemorial that it looks like 
nature. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

November i6th. 

These barren and tedious eccen- 
tricities are all that the air-tight stove 
can bestow, in exchange for the inval- 
uable moral influences which we have 
lost by our desertion of the open fire- 
place. Alas! is this world so very 
bright, that we can afford to choke 
up such a domestic fountain of glad- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 293 

someness, and sit down by Its dark- 
ened source, without being conscious 
of a gloom? 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

November lyth. 

The somewhat dim coal-fire has an 
essential Influence In producing the 
effect which I would describe. It 
throws Its unobtrusive tinge through- 
out the room, with a faint ruddiness 
upon the walls and celling, and a re- 
flected gleam from the polish of the 
furniture. This warmer light min- 
gles Itself with the cold spirituality of 
the moonbeams, and communicates, 
as It were, a heart and sensibilities of 
human tenderness to the forms which 
fancy summons up. It converts them 
from snow Images Into men and 



294 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

women. Glancing at the looking 
glass we behold — deep within Its 
haunted verge — the smoldering glow 
of the half-extinguished anthracite, 
the white moonbeams on the floor, 
and a repetition of all the gleam and 
shadow of the picture, with one re- 
move further from the actual, and 
nearer to the Imaginative. Then, at 
such an hour, and with this scene be- 
fore him. If a man, sitting all alone, 
cannot dream strange things, and 
make them look like truth, he need 
never try to write romances. 

— The Custom House, 



November i8th. 

But as for the old structure of our 
story. Its white-oak frame, and Its 
boards, shingles, and crumbling plas- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 295 

ter, and even the huge, clustered 
chimney In the midst, seemed to con- 
stitute only the least and meanest 
part of Its reality. So much of man- 
kind's varied experience had passed 
there — so much had been suffered, 
and something, too, enjoyed — that 
the very timbers were oozy, as with 
the moisture of a heart. It was it- 
self like a great human heart, with a 
life of Its own, and full of rich and 
somber reminiscences. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

November igth. 

And will Death and Sorrow ever 
enter that proud mansion ? As surely 
as the dancers will be gay within Its 
halls to-night. Such thoughts sadden 
yet satisfy my heart, for they teach 



296 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

me that the poor man In his mean, 
weather-beaten hovel, without a fire 
to cheer him, may call the rich his 
brother — brethren by Sorrow, who 
must be an Inmate of both their 
households; brethren by Death, who 
will lead them both to other homes. 
— Night Sketches, 

November 20th. 

At any nearer view the grandeur 
of St. Peter's hides itself behind the 
immensity of Its separate parts, so 
that we see only the front, only the 
sides, only the pillared length and 
loftiness of the portico, and not the 
mighty whole. But at this distance 
the entire outline of the world's 
cathedral, as well as that of the pal- 
ace of the world's chief priest. Is 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 297 

taken In at once. In such remote- 
ness, moreover, the Imagination Is not 
debarred from lending Its assistance, 
even while we have the reality before 
our eyes, and helping the weakness of 
human sense to do justice to so grand 
an object. It requires both faith and 
fancy to enable us to feel, what Is 
nevertheless so true, that yonder. In 
front of the purple outline of hills, Is 
the grandest edifice ever built by man, 
painted against God's loveliest sky. 
—The Marble Faun, 



November 2ist. 

It Is not, I apprehend, a healthy 
kind of mental occupation, to devote 
ourselves too exclusively to the study 
of Individual men and women. If 
the person under examination be one's 



298 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

self, the result Is pretty certain to be 
diseased action of the heart, almost 
before we can snatch a second glance. 
Or, If we take the freedom to put 
a friend under our microscope, we 
thereby Insulate him from many of 
his true relations, magnify his pecu- 
liarities, Inevitably tear him Into 
parts, and, of course, patch him very 
clumsily together again. 

— The Blithedale Romance. 

November 22d, 

In the course of generations, when 
many people have lived and died In 
an ancient house, the whistling of the 
wind through Its crannies and the 
creaking of Its beams and rafters be- 
come strangely like the tones of the 
human voice, or thundering laugh- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 299 



ter, or heavy footsteps treading the 
deserted chambers. It Is as if the 
echoes of half a century were revived. 
— Edward Randolph's Portrait. 

November z^d. 

After drinking from those foun- 
tains of still fresh existence, we shall 
return Into the crowd, as I do now, to 
struggle onward and do our part in 
life, perhaps as fervently as ever, but 
for a time with a kinder and purer 
heart, and a spirit more lightly wise. 
All this by thy sweet magic, dear lit- 
tle Annie! 

—Twice Told Tales. 

November 2^th. 

Grandfather, too, had been happy 
though not mirthful. He felt that 



300 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

this was to be set down as one of the 
good Thanksgivings of his life. In 
truth, all his former Thanksgivings 
had borne their part in the present 
one; for his years of infancy, and 
youth, and manhood, with their bless- 
ings and their griefs, had flitted be- 
fore him while he sat silently in the 
great chair. Vanished scenes had 
been pictured in the air. The forms 
of departed friends had visited him. 
Voices to be heard no more on earth 
had sent an echo from the infinite and 
the eternal. These shadows, if such 
they were, seemed almost as real to 
him as what was actually present — as 
the merry shouts and laughter of the 
children — as their figures, dancing 
like sunshine before his eyes. 

He felt that the past was not taken 
from him. The happiness of former 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 301 

days was a possession forever. And 
there was something In the mingled 
sorrow of his hfetlme that became 
akin to happiness, after being long 
treasured In the depths of his heart. 
There It underwent a change, and 
grew more precious than pure gold. 
— Famous Old People, 

November 25th. 

A parishioner comes In. With 
what warmth of benevolence — how 
should he be otherwise than warm, 
In any of his attributes? — does the 
minister bid him welcome, and set a 
chair for him in so close proximity to 
the hearth, that soon the guest finds It 
needful to rub his scorched shins with 
his great red hands. The melted 
snow drips from his steaming boots, 



302 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

and bubbles upon the hearth. His 
puckered forehead unravels Its en- 
tanglement of criss-cross wrinkles. 
We lose much of the enjoyment of 
fireside heat, without such an oppor- 
tunity of marking Its genial effect 
upon those who have been looking 
the inclement weather In the face. 
— Young Goodman Brown. 

November 26th. 

My life glided on, the past appear- 
ing to mingle with the present and 
absorb the future, till the whole lies 
before me at a glance. My manhood 
has long been waning with a stanch 
decay; my earlier contemporaries, af- 
ter lives of unbroken health, are all 
at rest without having known the 
weariness of later age; and now with 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 303 

a wrinkled forehead and thin white 
hair as badges of my dignity, I have 
become the patriarch — the uncle — of 
the village. I love that name; It 
widens the circle of my sympathies; 
It joins all the youthful to my house- 
hold In the kindred of affection. 

— The Village Uncle. 

November 2'jth. 

Nevertheless, If we look through 
all the heroic fortunes of mankind, 
we shall find this same entanglement 
of something mean and trivial with 
whatever Is noblest In joy or sorrow. 
Life Is made up of marble and mud. 
And, without all the deeper trust In 
a comprehensive sympathy above us, 
we might hence be led to suspect the 
Insult of a sneer, as well as an Im- 



304 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

mitigable frown, on the Iron coun- 
tenance of fate. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



November 28th. 

It Is sadly curious to observe how 
slight a taste of office suffices to In- 
fect a poor fellow with this singular 
disease. Uncle Sam's gold — mean- 
ing no disrespect to the worthy old 
gentleman — has, In this respect a 
quality of enchantment like that of 
the Devil's wages. Whoever touches 
It should look well to himself, or he 
may find the bargain to go hard 
against him. Involving, If not his soul, 
yet many of Its better attributes; Its 
sturdy force. Its courage and con- 
stancy, its truth. Its self-reliance, In 



NATHANIEL HAWTMORNE 305 

all that gives the emphasis to manly 
character. 

— The Custom House. 

November 2gth. 

And then, at twilight, when laborer 
or scholar, or mortal of whatever age, 
sex, or degree, drew a chair beside 
him, and looked into his glowing face, 
how acute, how profound, how com- 
prehensive was his sympathy with the 
mood of each and all ! He pictured 
forth their very thoughts. To the 
youthful he showed the scenes of the 
adventurous life before them; to 
the aged, the shadows of departed 
love and hope; and, If all earthly 
things had grown distasteful, he could 
gladden the fireside muser with golden 
glimpses of a better world. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



306 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

November joth. 

An effect — which I believe to be 
observable, more or less, in every in- 
dividual who has occupied the posi- 
tion — is, that, while he leans on the 
mighty arm of the Republic, his own 
proper strength departs from him. 
He loses, in an extent proportioned 
to the weakness or force of his origi- 
nal nature, the capability of self- 
support. If he possesses an unusual 
share of native energy, or the ener- 
vating magic of place do not operate 
too long upon him, his forfeited pow- 
ers may be redeemable. The ejected 
officer — fortunate in the unkindly 
shove that sends him forth betimes, to 
struggle amid a struggling world — 
may return to himself, and become all 
that he has ever been. But this sel- 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 307 



dom happens. He usually keeps his 
ground just long enough for his own 
ruin, and Is then thrust out, with 
sinews all unstrung, to totter along the 
difficult footpath of life as he best 
may. 

— The Custom House, 



DECEMBER 



December ist. 

It Is a heavy annoyance to a writer 
who endeavors to represent nature, 
Its various attitudes and circum- 
stances, In a reasonably correct out- 
line and true coloring, that so much 
of the mean and ludicrous should be 
hopelessly mixed up with the purest 
pathos which life anywhere supplies 
to him. 

— The House of the Seven Gables, 

December 2d. 

Afar, the wayfarer discerns the 
flickering flame, as It dances upon the 
windows, and halls It as a beacon 
light of humanity, reminding him, In 



312 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

his cold and lonely path, that the 
world Is not all snow, and solitude, 
and desolation. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

December ^d. 

I recollect no happier portion of 
my life than this my calm old age. 
It Is like the sunny and sheltered slope 
of a valley where late In the autumn 
the grass Is greener than In August, 
and Intermixed with golden dande- 
lions that had not been seen till now 
since the first warmth of the year. 
— The Village Uncle. 

December 4th. 

With how sweet humility did this 
elemental spirit perform all needful 
offices for the household In which he 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 313 

was domesticated! He was equal to 
the concoction of a grand dinner, yet 
scorned not to roast a potato, or toast 
a bit of cheese. How humanely did 
he cherish the schoolboy's Icy fingers, 
and thaw the old man's joints with a 
genial warmth, which almost equaled 
the glow of youth! And how care- 
fully did he dry the cowhide boots 
that had trudged through mud and 
snow, and the shaggy outside gar- 
ment, stiff with frozen sleet; taking 
heed, likewise, to the comfort of the 
faithful dog who had followed his 
master through the storm ! 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



December 5th. 

The domestic fire was a type of all 
these attributes, and seemed to bring 



314 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

might and majesty, and wild Nature 
and a spiritual essence, into our in- 
most home, and yet to dwell with us 
in such friendliness, that its mysteries 
and marvels excited no dismay. The 
same mild companion, that smiled so 
placidly in our faces, was he that 
comes roaring out of iEtna, and 
rushes madly up the sky, like a fiend 
breaking loose from torment, and 
fighting for a place among the upper 
angels. And it was he — this crea- 
ture of terrible might, and so many- 
sided utility, and all-comprehensive 
destructiveness — that used to be the 
cheerful, homely friend of our wintry 
days, and whom we have made the 
prisoner of this iron cage! 

— Young Goodman Brown, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 315 

December 6th, 

There are few uglier traits of 
human nature than this tendency — 
which I now witnessed in men no 
worse than their neighbors — to grow 
cruel, merely because they possessed 
the power of inflicting harm. If the 
guillotine, as applied to officeholders, 
were a literal fact, instead of one of 
the most apt of metaphors, It Is my 
sincere belief, that the active mem- 
bers of the victorious party were suf- 
ficiently excited to have chopped off 
all our heads, and have thanked 
Heaven for the opportunity. 

— The Custom House. 

December yth. 

What Is called poetic insight is 
the gift of discerning, in this sphere 



316 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FRO 31 

of Strangely mingled elements, the 
beauty and the majesty which are 
compelled to assume a garb so sordid. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 



December 8th, 

Oh, I should be loath to lose my 
treasure of past happiness and become 
once more what I was then — a hermit 
In the depths of my own mind, some- 
times yawning over drowsy volumes, 
and anon a scribbler of wearier trash 
than what I read; a man who had 
wandered out of the real world 
and got Into Its shadow, where his 
troubles, joys, and vicissitudes were 
of such slight stuff that he hardly 
knew whether he lived or only 
dreamed of living. Thank Heaven 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 317 

I am an old man now and have done 
with all such vanities ! 

— The Village Uncle. 

December gth. 

There is something peculiar In the 
aspect of the morning fireside; a 
fresher, brisker glare; the absence of 
that mellowness, which can be pro- 
duced only by half-consumed logs, 
and shapeless brands with the white 
ashes on them, and mighty coals, the 
remnant of tree trunks that the hun- 
gry elements have gnawed for hours. 
The morning hearth, too. Is newly 
swept, and the brazen andirons well 
brightened, so that the cheerful fire 
may see its face In them. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



318 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 



December loth. 

As the pure breath of children re- 
vives the Hfe of aged men, so is our 
moral nature revived by their free 
and simple thoughts, their native feel- 
ing, their airy mirth, for little cause 
or none, their grief, soon roused and 
soon allayed. Their influence on us 
Is at least reciprocal with ours on 
them. 

— Twice Told Tales, 



December nth. 

In the course of world's lifetime, 
every remedy was tried for its cure 
and extirpation, except the single one, 
the flower that grew in Heaven, and 
was sovereign for all the miseries of 
earth. Man never had attempted to 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 319 

cure sin by Love ! Had he but once 
made the effort, it might well have 
happened, that there would have 
been no more need of the dark lazar- 
house into which Adam and Eve have 
wandered. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse. 

December I2th. 

You must not think that there was 
no integrity and honor except among 
those who stood up for the freedom 
of America. For aught I know, there 
was quite as much of these qualities 
on one side as on the other. Do you 
see nothing admirable in a faithful 
adherence to an unpopular cause? 
Can you not respect that principle of 
loyalty which made the royalists give 
up country, friends, fortune, every- 



320 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

thing, rather than be false to their 
king? It was a mistaken principle; 
but many of them cherished it hon- 
orably, and were martyrs to it. 

— Liberty Tree. 

December ijth. 

This perception of an infinite, shiv- 
ering solitude, amid which we cannot 
come close enough to human beings 
to be warmed by them, and where 
they turn to cold, chilly shapes of 
mist. Is one of the most forlorn re- 
sults of any accident, misfortune, 
crime, or peculiarity of character, 
that puts an Individual ajar with the 
world. Very often there Is an In- 
satiable Instinct that demands friend- 
ship, love, and Intimate communion, 
but Is forced to pine in empty forms; 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 321 

a hunger of the heart, which finds 
only shadows to feed upon. 

—The Marble Faun. 



December 14th, 

Girls are Incomparably wilder and 
more effervescent than boys, more un- 
tamable, and regardless of rule and 
limit, with an ever-shifting variety, 
breaking continually into new modes 
of fun, yet with a harmonious pro- 
priety through all. Their steps, 
their voices, appear free as the wind, 
but keep consonance with a strain of 
music Inaudible to us. Young men 
and boys, on the other hand, play, 
according to recognized law, old, tra- 
ditionary games, permitting no capri- 
oles of fancy, but with scope enough 
for the outbreak of savage instincts. 



322 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

For, young or old, In play or In ear- 
nest, man Is prone to be a brute. 

— The Blithedale Romance. 

December i^th. 

How does Winter herald his ap- 
proach? By the shrieking blast of 
latter Autumn, which Is Nature's cry 
of lamentation as the destroyer rushes 
among the shivering groves where she 
has lingered and scatters the sear 
leaves upon the tempest. When that 
cry Is heard, the people wrap them- 
selves In cloaks, and shake their heads 
disconsolately, saying: "Winter Is at 
hand." 

— Snowflakes. 

December idth. 

During the short afternoon, the 
western sunshine comes Into the study, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 323 

and strives to stare the ruddy blaze 
out of countenance, but with only a 
brief triumph, soon to be succeeded by 
brighter glories of Its rival. Beauti- 
ful It Is to see the strengthening 
gleam — the deepening light — that 
gradually casts distinct shadows of 
the human figure, the table, and the 
high-backed chairs, upon the oppo- 
site wall, and at length, as twilight 
comes on, replenishes the room with 
living radiance, and makes life all 
rose-color. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

December lyth. 

And I, likewise — who have found 
a home In this ancient owl's nest, since 
its former occupant took his Heaven- 
ward flight — I, to my shame, have put 



324 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

up Stoves In kitchen, and parlor, and 
chamber. Wander where you will 
about the house, not a glimpse of the 
earth-born, Heaven-aspiring fiend of 
^tna — him that sports In the thunder 
storm — the idol of the Ghebers — the 
devourer of cities, the forest-rioter, 
and pralrle-sweeper — the future de- 
stroyer of our earth — the old chim- 
ney-corner companion, who mingled 
himself so sociably with household 
joys and sorrows — not a glimpse of 
this mighty and kindly one will greet 
your eyes. He Is now an invisible 
presence. There Is his Iron cage. 
— Young Goodman Brown. 

December i8th. 

Many writers lay very great stress 
upon some definite moral purpose, at 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 325 

which they profess to aim their works. 
Not to be deficient in this particular, 
the author has provided himself with 
a moral — the truth, namely, that the 
wrong-doing of one generation lives 
into the successive ones, and, divesting 
itself of every temporary advantage, 
becomes a pure and uncontrollable 
mischief — and he would feel it a 
singular gratification, if this romance 
might effectually convince mankind — 
or, indeed, any one man — of the folly 
of tumbling down an avalanche of 
ill-gotten gold, or real estate, on the 
heads of an unfortunate posterity, 
thereby to maim and crush them, un- 
til the accumulated mass shall be scat- 
tered abroad in its original atoms. 
— The House of the Seven Gables. 



326 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

December igth. 

People in difficulty or in distress, 
or in any manner at odds with the 
world, can endure a vast amount of 
harsh treatment, and perhaps be only 
the stronger for it ; whereas, they give 
way at once before the simplest ex- 
pression of what they perceive to be 
genuine sympathy. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 



December 20th, 

The good old clergyman, my pred- 
ecessor in this mansion, was well ac- 
quainted with the comforts of the 
fireside. His yearly allowance of 
wood, according to the terms of his 
settlement, was no less than sixty 
cords. Almost an annual forest was 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 327 

converted from sound oak logs into 
ashes, In the kitchen, the parlor, and 
this little study, where now an un- 
worthy successor — not in the pastoral 
office, but merely in his earthly abode 
— sits scribbling beside an air-tight 
stove. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

December 21st. 

Evening — the early eve of Decem- 
ber — begins to spread its deepening 
veil over the comfortless scene. The 
firelight gradually brightens and 
throws my flickering shadow upon 
the walls and ceiling of the chamber, 
but still the storm rages and rattles 
against the windows. Alas ! I shiver 
and think It time to be disconsolate, 
but, taking a farewell glance at dead 



328 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

Nature In her shroud, I perceive a 
flock of snow birds skimming light- 
somely through the tempest and flit- 
ting from drift to drift as sportively 
as swallows in the delightful prime 
of summer. Whence come they? 
Where do they build their nests and 
seek their food? Why, having airy 
wings do they not follow Summer 
around the earth, instead of making 
themselves the playmates of the 
storm and fluttering on the dreary 
verge of the winter's eve? I know 
not whence they come, nor why; yet 
my spirit has been cheered by that 
wandering flock of snow birds. 

— Snowflakes. 

December 22a. 

It is only through the medium of 
the imagination that we can lessen 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 329 

those iron fetters, which we call truth 
and reality, and make ourselves even 
partially sensible what prisoners we 
are. 

— Mosses from an Old Manse, 

December 2^d. 

In one way or another, here and 
there, and all around us, the inven- 
tions of mankind are fast blotting 
the picturesque, the poetic, and the 
beautiful, out of human life. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 

December 24th. 

Pleasant is a rainy winter's day 
within doors. The best study for 
such a day — or the best amusement, 
call It what you will — is a book of 



330 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

travels describing scenes the most un- 
like that somber one which is mistily 
presented through the windows. I 
have experienced that Fancy is then 
most successful in imparting distinct 
shapes and vivid colors to the ob- 
jects which the author has spread 
upon his page, and that his words 
become magic spells to summon up a 
thousand varied pictures. Strange 
landscapes glimmer through the fa- 
miliar walls of the room, and outland- 
ish figures thrust themselves almost 
within the sacred precincts of the 
hearth. Small as my chamber is, it 
has space enough to contain the ocean- 
like circumference of an Arabian des- 
ert, its parched sands tracked by the 
long line of a caravan with the 
camels patiently journeying through 
the heavy sunshine. Though my 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 331 



celling be not lofty, yet I can pile up 
the mountains of Central Asia be- 
neath It till their summits shine far 
above the clouds of the middle at- 
mosphere. 

— Night Sketches. 

December 25th. 

When romances do really teach 
anything, or produce any effective 
operation. It Is usually through a far 
more subtile process than the osten- 
sible one. 

— The House of the Seven Gables. 

December 26th. 

Blessed, therefore, and reverently 
welcomed by me, her true-born son, 
be New England's Winter, which 
makes us one and all the nurslings of 



332 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

the storm, and sings a familiar lullaby 
even in the wildest shriek of the De- 
cember blast. 

— Snoivflakes, 

December 2yth. 

How kindly he was, and, though 
the tremendous agent of change, yet 
bearing himself with such gentleness, 
so rendering himself a part of all life- 
long and age-coeval associations, that 
it seemed as If he were the great con- 
servative of Nature ! While a man 
was true to the fireside, so long would 
he be true to country and law — to the 
God whom his fathers worshiped — 
to the wife of his youth — and to all 
things else which Instinct or religion 
have taught us to consider sacred. 
— Young Goodman Brown, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 333 



December 28th. 

Where is that brilliant guest — that 
quick and subtle spirit whom Prome- 
theus lured from Heaven to civilize 
mankind, and cheer them in their 
Wintry desolation — that comfortable 
inmate, whose smile, during eight 
months of the year, was our sufficient 
consolation for Summer's lingering 
advance and early flight? Alas! 
blindly inhospitable, grudging the 
food that kept him cheery and mer- 
curial, we have thrust him into an iron 
prison, and compel him to smolder 
away his life on a daily pittance which 
once would have been too scanty for 
his breakfast ! Without a metaphor, 
we now make our fire in an air-tight 
stove, and supply it with some half-a- 



334 BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS FROM 

dozen sticks of wood between dawn 
and nightfall. 

— Young Goodman Brown, 



December 2gth, 

Thus the great house was built. 
Familiar as it stands in the writer's 
recollection — for it has been an ob- 
ject of curiosity with him from boy- 
hood, both as a specimen of the best 
and stateliest architecture of a long- 
past epoch, and as the one of events 
more full of human interest, perhaps, 
than that of a gray feudal castle — 
familiar as it stands, in its rusty old 
age, it is therefore only the more diffi- 
cult to imagine the bright novelty 
with which it first caught the sunshine. 
— The House of the Seven Gables, 



NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 335 

December ^oth. 

It is a great revolution in social 
and domestic life — and no less so in 
the life of the secluded student — this 
almost universal exchange of the 
open fire-place for the cheerless and 
ungenial stove. 

— Young Goodman Brown. 



December 31st. 

The clock in the tall steeple of 
Doctor Emerson's church struck 
twelve; there was a response from 
Doctor Flint's, in the opposite quar- 
ter of the city; and while the strokes 
were yet dropping into the air, the 
Old Year either flitted or faded away, 
and not the wisdom and might of 
angels, to say nothing of the remorse- 



336 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

ful yearnings of the millions who had 
used her 111, could have prevailed with 
that departed year to return one step. 
But she, in the company of Time and 
all her kindred, must hereafter hold 
a reckoning with mankind. 

— The Sister-Years. 



4 134 



